We're Going Nowhere
by MaybeWolf
Summary: "She's melting into Robbie's lap and pulling his lips to hers. It's not like what he'd expected. A kiss with Tori Vega, it should be soft and delicate, a warm embrace spreading through his veins. Instead, the embrace that Robbie finds himself sinking into is hard and rough, a desperate plea screaming into his ear." RobbiexTori
1. The Ghost Of You

**This has been a long time coming. I wasn't even going to post it, but here it is. If you like, please drop a review. It'll guilt me into continuing it :)**

* * *

"_I thought I'd buried you_

_And covered the tracks_

_You'll have to take this with your cold dead hands_

_I thought I'd buried you_

_Where sin can never die"  
_

* * *

Robbie is at a Frat Party, also known as one of those places where everybody but him gets laid, when he sees her. It's been a long time, almost two years, but she's changed a _lot_. The girl's hair is several shades darker than at Hollywood Arts. It's also falling limply onto her shoulders, like chemicals have suffocated the waves he remembers, but he knows it's her.

She's still beautiful, but the longer Robbie's eyes stay locked on her, the more he wonders what happened to the girl he used to know. Robbie's mind flickers back to the last time they'd hung out before she'd left for New York. He remembers her wearing a pair of acid-washed jeans, and a bright purple top emblazoned with cartoon animal of some sort. What had the animal been, a puppy or a kitten? Maybe it had been a giraffe. It had definitely been something cute.

_Cute. _

The word seems lost on this girl, who's all tight leather pants and a shirt that seems painted on. She's looking at him now, and her eyebrows are clenching together like she remembers him. Robbie's breath hitches in his throat, and he bites down on the inside of his lip. The taste of copper floods his mouth, and that's good enough to force a decision from Robbie. With his throat scratchy and dry, Robbie braces his palms on the table in front of himself. The drinking game he'd been so firmly entangled in only a few moments will rage on without him. Right now though, Tori Vega has just walked back into his life.

Robbie's out of his seat and his leg is raised, ready to take his first step. That's when the arm belonging to the guy to Robbie's left – Aiden, also his roommate – winds around him and drags him back into place. Robbie's eyes slide away from Tori for scant seconds, but that's all it takes. By the time he's dispensed of his roommate, Tori's disappeared.

He doesn't see her again that night. There's no tearful reunion, or anything like that. Robbie even starts to think his mind has conjured a ghost from his past, in it's drunken haze.

It's not until three days later that he catches a familiar figure flying past him in his first lecture of the week. In the end, he sees Tori take a seat right up the back of the lecture hall. Probably in one of the seats Robbie had gotten a nosebleed from in the first lecture of the year. It had been part of an ill-conceived plan to be one of the _cool _kids.

Robbie steals a few glances at Tori over the course of the lecture, almost giving himself whiplash in the process. With the disinterested expression on her face, Tori's effortlessly one of those kids. One of the ones he'd been so desperate to be. Today she's wearing a white V-neck, and Robbie knows it's one that would have charred her cheeks a deep shade of red in high school. He spends the rest of the lecture wondering if Tori even remembers him. She doesn't even seem to remember who _she_ is.

There's another party at Sigma Epsilon Xi that weekend as well. Of course there is. Robbie's been at Berkley for over two years now, and he thinks that fraternity has held no less than one hundred parties since he's arrived.

On this particular night, Aiden drags him to the Frat house at no later than nine forty. Aiden in addition to being Robbie's roommate, is probably the closest Robbie has come to filling void left by his friends from Hollywood Arts – even Jade, and especially Tori. He's not such a bad guy, Robbie just wishes his roommate would stop bringing up, and then laughing at the gross gluten-free beer he's forced to buy.

"You know Vega?"

The question catches Robbie off guard, and he blinks with great surprise. Turning, he realizes that Aiden is looking at him and his russet eyes are unusually focused. Shifting his weight from foot to foot, Robbie cycles through, and then discards several unsatisfactory answers. Somehow he doesn't think _I used to love her_ would be a response Aiden would appreciate. Seeing the edges of his friends focus starting to fray, Robbie settles for the obvious. "Yeah, high school."

"Be careful man. I know I said you need to get laid, but uh -" Aiden says, analysing Robbie critically. "I don't think you're ready for _that _ride." He finishes, lightly shaking his head. Robbie blinks again, shock carving it's way into his features. When he opens his eyes, Aiden is already wading into the throng of people on the Sigma Epsilon Xi porch. Panicking a little bit, Robbie's forced into darting forward with a long loping step in order to catch up to his friend.

Aiden effortlessly weaves through the endless sea of slightly, or in some cases, _really_ intoxicated students. Robbie meanwhile, lags behind him, getting caught up in stray limbs and consequently having to apologize for spilt drinks. Eventually, after what had felt like an endless struggle, Robbie shoulders his way into the room he'd seen Aiden disappear into a few minutes ago. Smoke immediately erupts through the door and floods Robbie's senses. With no great sense of surprise, Robbie realizes it's not so very legal origin.

Coughing slightly, he presses further into the room, anyway. Through the haze, Robbie sees Aiden already settled into a fairly intimate circle, wedged between two vaguely familiar. Also, there's a back Robbie _definitely_ recalls. It's one that he recognizes from years gone by, and one previous time in this very house.

"No, to the left! Always to the left." Aiden instructs, looking vaguely – very vaguely, actually – annoyed, as Robbie flops down into a widening gap beside him. Steadying himself, Robbie first offers a grateful smile to the girl – Wendy, Wanda, something like that. He's seen her in one of these circles before, and he's sure it had started with a W – for moving over. Having exchanged pleasantries, Robbie's attention shifts to the girl currently inhaling from the tall glass bong Aiden has just demanded be passed to the left.

With her eyes sealed, Tori brings the pipe away from her mouth, and luxuriates with a deep, smoke filled exhale. Again, there are fragments of the girl he used to know, but they're hidden amongst a person Robbie's never met and clouded with a smog Robbie never thought he'd see pass Tori's lips. When Tori's eyelids slide open again, it's only partially. She regards him with a heavy-lidded gaze, the edges of her mouth drifting upward languidly. Paradoxically, fear wells up inside of Robbie and he _has _to go. He's worn that same grin a couple of times in the past, but seeing it cross Tori's lips is – it's just _too_ weird.

"Headache, gotta go." Robbie blurts out, flying upright and retreating from the room. Once he's broken out of the circle, Robbie careens through the door and pushes his way through the crowd of people he'd only just passed through. Without a second glance behind him, Robbie's out of Sigma Epsilon Xi's bordello of debauchery.

Robbie's too afraid to see Tori again, after that.

He trains his eyes to the front of the lecture on Monday, and embeds himself deep into the heart of every crowd to minimise his chances of seeing her for the rest of the week. By the time Friday smothers him in its embrace, there's a deep gnawing in the pit of Robbie's stomach. He guesses this is what it might be like to be an addict weening themself off a drug. Seeing Tori had been the high, and the realization that she's changed had been the comedown.

"That's pretty deep. You're a weird, emotionally stunted dude, man." Aiden says, laying on his bed across the room and staring at the roof in a slightly addled state.

Kicking his feet off the ground and onto his bed, Robbie absently folds his arms over his abdomen and does the same. It's such a cliché, two roommates staring at the ceiling and saying meaningful things, but that's sort of what college is, a bundled series of clichés and contradictions. Also, Robbie chooses not to mention that either the dude or the man Aiden's just called him was unnecessary, so apparently College is also about compromise.

"Coming out tonight?" Aiden muses toward the ceiling. Robbie pushes his glasses up onto his nose and wonders. _Is_ he coming out tonight? The question dredges up conflicting whirlwinds of fear and excitement, tying his innards in knots, and making him feel physically ill. Draping his arms over his stomach again, Robbie can already feel his palms beginning to sweat – a sure sign he's about to say something he'll later regret.

"Yeah."

So begins take three, the third party of the semester, but _hopefully_ the first time Robbie's going to find his misplaced courage. This time, when Robbie takes his first step through Sigma Epsilon Xi's huge doors, there's a change in the air. It's not the smoke – or lack thereof – but Robbie swears something is different. Aiden leads as usual, but this time, Robbie doesn't get tangled up in other revellers, or waste any precious alcohol. Being Jewish – sort of – Robbie's mind drifts back to the story of Moses and how he'd parted the red sea. Somehow he doesn't think Robbie Shapiro, parter of the drunken swarm will live on beyond a stray Slap post or two.

"Is – is something weird?" Robbie asks in a hushed tone, leaning over Aiden's shoulder and shaking his friend slightly. Detaching himself from Robbie's jittery grip, Aiden twists around and analyses the room. Finally, when he comes to a halt, an answer marinated in stoner wisdom spews forth.

"Yeah, man. I mean – yeah. Something. Something is _not _on." Aiden says, before pausing thoughtfully and offering another nugget of brilliance. "Can we cruise now, though? This, this is giving me the _heebie-jeebies_, and I'm not into this whole…_not_ partying at a party, thing."

Sighing, Robbie trails behind his friend and sort of wishes he'd happened upon a different roommate. As much as Aiden reminds him of some sort of weird Beck and Cat lovechild, Robbie feels like sometimes those traits might be a hindrance to _actually _receiving help.

The night after this is sort of just, it's mostly a standard night at the Frat House, actually. That's not to say there isn't a certain amount of carnage, it's just that two years has a funny way of numbing somebody to these sorts of things. A fight spills onto the Table Robbie'd been playing Beer Pong at, and nobody bats an eyelid. Less than a moment after the scrapping freshman have tumbled into another part of the room, Aiden is patiently resetting their cups.

But yeah.

An hour after that, Robbie finds out that things have a way of shocking you, just when you think you've figured them out. Robbie is leaning on the kitchen counter, having been pulled there by Wendy/Wanda. You know what? From now on it's Big W, since she's sort of tall. Big W is complaining dispassionately about something Aiden has done, as usual. From the bits Robbie can hear between the music floating through the door, it's actually not that big of a deal. Far be it for him to tell _her _that, though. He might not actually know her name, but Robbie's seen Big W's usually placid features distort in fury over the most peculiar things. Taking the risk that this might be one of those things isn't something Robbie feels like chancing.

"Oh, by the way, that Vega girl is looking for you." Big W mentions idly, tacking the sentence onto the tail end of her rant. Robbie's thick brow slides together, and he wonders when Tori, bringer of sunshine and perkiness became _That Vega Girl_.

Bidding Big W a farewell, Robbie leans a little more heavily on the counter, and stares at the battered fridge across the kitchen. Random scraps of paper litter the front of it – some torn out articles or old test papers, and others quite obviously girl's numbers. _Sharing_ girls, the thought turns Robbie's stomach and he wonders what sort of guy does that. A shadow passes behind Robbie, and he's about to abandon the kitchen to avoid an awkward conversation when -

"So, uh. Long time no see, huh?" Tori says, sidling up beside – like _really _beside Robbie – and then hopping up on the kitchen counter next to him.

"Yeah, it's been a minute, huh." Robbie says, forcing himself to be casual in the way he never could at Hollywood Arts.

As he turns around and hoists himself up beside Tori, Robbie guesses she's not the only one to have changed. He's a little different too. It's just she'd been _Tori_, Queen-Bee of Hollywood Arts, and he'd been Robbie, Third least popular boy in their graduating class. There had actually been a poll on that and – anyway, Robbie's mind keeps spiralling back to one thing. He'd needed to change. Tori, she'd been perfect the way she was.

Glancing sidelong at Tori, he barely recognizes the girl that's now sitting beside him. It's not the shirt that's more holes than material, or the way her eyes are rimmed in enough mascara to put a severe dent in Jade's supply. It's just, it's - her feet aren't even swinging. It's a minor thing, trivial really, but the Hollywood Arts Tori, the _real_ Tori, had always swung her legs in the rare situations she'd been high enough to have the chance. She'd told him once that it helped her forget about being taller than half of the boys in their class.

Distractedly, and more nervously than Robbie's saw her over the last two weeks at these parties – plus the other times he's seen, and sort of stalked her a little bit – Tori pulls a pack of cigarettes from her dark leather bag. Much to Robbie's disbelief, Tori fishes a cigarette from the packet and lifts it to her lips. With his jaw hanging loose, Robbie watches Tori's mouth as it wraps around this, her latest vice.

Tori takes a drag, and then looks up at Robbie guiltily. Then she's holding the pack between them, like that's the reason Robbie had been staring. Numbly, Robbie shakes his head and tries to swallow the thick lump in his throat.

"Same old Rob." Tori says, taking another drag, and then letting the white stick dangle from her fingers. There's an artful carelessness to it, like she's trained herself to be this way.

"Guess that makes one of us." Robbie says, voice raw with emotion. He tacks on a smile, and laughs at the end of it, trying to look casual like Tori does. His lips struggle at the edges, and his laugh sounds like a bark though. All it does it magnify what he'd been trying to hide though; the crushing heaviness of a memory burned by the harsh light of reality.**  
**

"Ya noticed, huh?"

The reply drifts through Tori's lips quietly, like it's the first time this has happened. Robbie guesses that to everybody else at this school, they've only ever met this Tori, _that Vega girl_. He's seen who Tori used to be though, and this girl, she just looks like a distant relative of his old crush – you know, the one that doesn't get invited to Christmas at Grandma's because they're _bad news._**  
**

"Little bit." Robbie says, taking a deep breath and trying to remember how he used to converse with Tori. It comes to him eventually, and he lifts his arm with a mechanical creak – a metaphorical one, because Robbie is artful, and in his mind relationships are like a machine. This one, the one that represents his relationship with Tori, is rusty from disuse – to gesture with his fingers.

As corroded as his attempted at levity may have been, it brings a soft smile to Tori's face. It's one that looks out of place next to the dark rims of kohl surrounding her eyes, and the deep shade of crimson on her lips. That's not exactly a bad thing though, it's a sign to Robbie that those fragments of _his_ Tori are starting to knit themselves together amid the cage of _this _Tori.

"Am I -" Tori's lips quiver, and then slump back into their – apparently now – usual lifeless state. "Fuck. You know, time has a way with people, and all that crap." She adds, and Robbie cringes feebly. He's heard girls swear before, several in the last hour. It's just – yet again – his mind wanders back to a time when the worst words Tori could bear to part with were _Wazz_ or _Chizz_.

"Time sucks. You were – uh, I don't know, maybe you still are – but at Hollywood Arts, you were definitely perfect. I just…I don't know, maybe it's just the moments, like studying and all that dumb stuff you probably don't remember. They were – I just miss the old days, I guess. I just, I missed you Tori." The words clatter through Robbie's lips before he can really decide whether or not he's over sharing. When he finally seizes up, complete with bunched shoulders, Tori looks stricken. She's dropped the cigarette, and her eyes – they don't look so dark – Robbie almost thinks he spots a stray twinkle from their high school days, a rare spark of light within a girl that no longer shines. After Robbie's admission, Tori stares at him for a little while longer. It's slightly unnerving, but then -

She's melting into Robbie's lap and pulling his lips to hers. It's not like what he'd expected. A kiss with Tori Vega, it should be soft and delicate, a warm embrace spreading through his veins. Instead, the embrace that Robbie finds himself sinking into is hard and rough, a desperate plea screaming into his ear. Tori's teeth nip at his lips, and the familiar taste of blood mingles with Tori's bitter nicotine infused flavour. She's broken and Robbie knows this. It's a painful realisation evident in the way Tori's lips are mashed against his, and the way she's slithered into his lap. The only thing that hasn't changed between them is Robbie's dumb little heart, and the way Tori – even this broken Tori – makes it jump around perilously in his chest.

"The fuck, Vega?"

Reluctantly, Robbie disentangles himself from Tori – which is easier said than done, since she shares no such inclination - at that unpleasant interruption. Staring at the huffing and puffing Frat boy that's stomped unnecessarily close to them, Robbie feels his heart tense up as panic begins to course through him. This oversized ogre, Robbie thinks it's the same guy that's sent at least three people in his dorm to the hospital since the beginning of the semester. God knows Robbie is no fighter, so it seems inevitable that he'll be joining Chris in the ICU.


	2. Hollow Eyes

**Snap! Thanks for all of the reviews everyone. I'm going to attempt another update before the end of the weekend. As always, let me know what you thought of this update :)**

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_I'm scared to get close and I hate being alone  
I long for that feeling to not feel at all  
The higher I get, the lower I sink  
I can't drown my demons, they know how to swim_

* * *

"What?"

Robbie's bones almost jump out of his skin at the acerbic snarl that springs from Tori's mouth. Swallowing, Robbie watches as she finally, and fully, extricates herself from his lap. She looks less than thrilled – maybe even murderous – as her eyes fall on the intruder. Fratty, Robbie's mind dubs him at that particular point in time. The caveman shrinks noticeably under her cold gaze, and without Tori to hold onto, Robbie's hands tumble heavily into his lap. There's an odd sensation of loss in his fingers, one that stretches beyond the physical.

"I uh, just thought we were a thing." Fratty says, scratching the side of his head and tousling his shaggy blonde mane. For an instant, he looks like a lost little boy, and Robbie actually feels a pang of sympathy. It's fleeting though. All of the wrath and anger returns to Fratty's voice when his eyes lock onto Robbie. "So who and what the fuck is this?" He demands, jabbing a meaty finger in Robbie's direction.

"_This_, is Robbie," Tori replies, her voice all icy calmness as she winds an arm around Robbie's at the crook of his elbow. Forcing himself to sit upright, Robbie at least tries to look like the prized possession Tori is making him out to be. "And you, Michael, are nothing. Now why don't you go back to the cesspool of testosterone that you crawled out of or something?" She adds flippantly, waving an arm at the doorway, and in the direction of a game of Beer Pong that's sprung up in the main room. Fratty stomps his foot – an act that's almost seismic in nature – and then scowls in a way that seems detached compared to his earlier anger, like his feeble mind has finally taken stock of the situation.

"Okay, whatever then. I guess they were right about you, Vega." Fratty hisses, leaning forwards and grinning maliciously. It's the same way Robbie imagines a shark with the scent of blood in its nostrils conversing with somebody – you know, if such a thing were possible. Even before Fratty speaks again, there's a weight like lead in Robbie's stomach, something bad is coming. "You know they call you the one and done, fuck and run special, don't you _Tori?"_

The big bag comes in the form of Tori's first name. It's the first time he's heard anybody other than himself use it. Instantly, he realizes why. _Tori,_it sounds like a million broken promises, and dreams torn asunder when it comes off Fratty's lips. Robbie feels Tori's arm wrap almost unperceivably tighter around his, and her eyes start to glass over as her mean front crumbles. Tori's lips twitch, and then begin to part like she's going to say something. Three weak syllables that sound suspiciously like _I hate you_ creep through her lips. Robbie gets the impression they were the last of Tori's fight, so he cuts in -

"Are you Italian?" The words have their desired effect. Fratty freezes up, confusion bumbling it's way onto his face as takes a step backwards and stands back up to his full height.

"N-no. What's it to you?" He growls, regaining control of the composure that had threatened to unravel once again. Robbie steels himself with a tale that's been blowing around the campus. Apparently one of the brothers from this fraternity is on thin ice with the faculty. Based on Fratty's track record, Robbie thinks – well mostly he really fucking hopes – it's him. Even while Robbie's holding the gaze of the Ogre – also known as Fratty – in front of him, Tori's visage seeps into the side of his vision. Robbie's retort sticks to his tongue, and he pauses, frozen by the look on Tori's face. Her eyes are widened, and her mouth is drawn into a think contemplative line. She looks smaller than he can ever remember her being, like it's been an eternity since anybody was on her side.

"Oh, just wondering, y'know. You're not on the track team are you? I mean, you're not particularly skinny, but that might explain it..." Robbie forges ahead, speaking again and tilting his head with the words. Keeping his eyes trained on Fratty, Robbie rubs his chin with exaggerated contemplation and tries not the think about the girl currently clinging to him. Fratty stares at Robbie, and belatedly begins to glower at him, the confusion on his face mingling with frustration, and carving deep lines into his forehead.

"Wondering what, beanpole?" Robbie's forced to bite down on the inside of his lip at that. Lowering his gaze to the floor, Robbie hides the mirth that's infiltrating his face beneath a mane of tangled black hair. Of all the insults in the world, Fratty's tongue stumbles across that one. It's almost sad underdeveloped, and stuck in the 1950's Fratty's vocabulary is.

"Oh, I was just wondering why I saw some girls in the Starbucks on campus point at you and mention that the two minute noodle was going past." Robbie says, pursing his lips in false wonder, and widening his eyes with less than sincere innocence. Tori's still hovering tightly at his side, and Robbie can feel her ribs shaking with barely restrained amusement. This whole thing – the implication that Fratty's sexual prowess is less than satisfactory – is fabricated of course. But from Tori's reaction, and way Fratty's eyebrows are breaking over his nose with the first signs of pure unadulterated rage, Robbie thinks that maybe it's not entirely removed from the truth. Also, he thinks now might be the time to leave. Faculty or not, volatile tempers _will _fray.

"The two minute what?" Fratty barks, blinking with realization as rage – or maybe embarrassment – chars his face a horrible shade of purple.

Fratty's meaty hands ball into impossibly huge fists, and Robbie watches with detached fascination as the lummox works himself into a frenzy of shame and aggression. Really, he should be darting through the door and never darkening the floor of Sigma Epsilon Xi ever again. Instead, he sits calmly on the kitchen counter, awaiting his fate. He's too lost in the way that Tori left leg has begun to sway. It's almost still in all honesty, but it's something. A glimmer of hope, and Robbie thinks he may have coaxed it forth. He'll spend the next few weeks – hopefully, if he hasn't pissed off whatever looking over him up in sky – recovering in the hospital, but Robbie knows he'll do it with a smile on his face. What's a little pain in exchange for a resurrection? He'd do anything to bring lure the girl that stole his heart during high school into the present day.

"Careful Robbie, my last regret involved him. I think it took almost ninety seconds, actually." Tori's words come with the dispassionate bravado that had disappeared for a few fleeting minutes. She drapes herself over Robbie's shoulder, and Robbie's stomach churns unhappily at his angel and her clipped wings. Momentarily Robbie's focus drifts from the behemoth in front of him, and he looks over to Tori. He's just in time to catch a lazy smirk crossing her lips, like she's ready for whatever, jaded like he is. Robbie finds himself missing when she'd freak out over the tiniest thing along with his and –

"Get off me!"

The sudden explosion of sound pulls Robbie's attention back to where it probably should have been the whole time – Fratty. Well not just Fratty anymore, actually. Several brothers from the fraternity have heard the ruckus – or maybe somebody has told them about it – and a tangle of limbs has ensnared Fratty. The buzzing static of several drunken voices attempting to reassure another floods the room, and Robbie guesses they'll be no addition to Fratty's body count tonight. Satisfied that he's not about to be gored by a rampaging beast, Robbie fixes his eyes to Tori again. She stares back at him, and instead of her lips curling upright, or anything positive really, it's -

"Anyway, I'm gonna bail. Not really in the mood for..._this_ tonight." Tori declares, gesturing vaguely towards the tangled assortment of frat boys currently attempting to shove Fratty back into another room. It just about shatters Robbie's stupid little heart all over again when Tori turns, and saunters in the direction of the kitchen door he'd thought might make a good escape route earlier. Her fingers are slipping over the handle when Robbie lurches into action.

"Wait! So, uh…" He cries, and even with Tori facing the opposite direction, he sees her shoulders quake with a flinch. It catches Robbie off guard, and his voice is suddenly scratchy. He only manages to successfully claw another word and a half off his tongue before screeching to a halt as Tori's spirals back around. One of her eyebrows is cocked, and her arms are tightly folded over her chest. Confronted with the one that got away, Robbie's got no idea to ask her how to stay.

He never actually gets the chance to snivel or cajole, though.

"It's been a while since a guy said that after - uh, after kissing me." Tori says, hacking up something that Robbie guesses is laughter. It's a bitter, noxious sound, and dredges up blur of images before Robbie's eyes.

Looking at the ground again, Robbie just tries to swallow the lump in his throat that's trailed them. She hasn't actually told him anything, and yet the profound sense of loss that's been swimming around in Robbie's gut only grows. It sprouts legs – or maybe vines – that are taking root in the pit of his stomach. He's long since realized that life can be unkind at the best of times, but seeing that knowledge on Tori's face. Again, it's more than he can handle.

"You uh, want to come watch a movie?"

Tori's eyes blow wide apart at Robbie's offer, and her arms falter slightly, sliding lower on her abdomen. Plucking up whatever courage he hasn't already spent tonight, Robbie stands up and walks over to her. He wipes his hand on his jeans – trying in vain to end an unyielding flood from his pores – and offers it to Tori. Her dark eyes flicker from Robbie face, and then to his outstretched palm. She catches her lower lip between her teeth, and then hesitantly begins to lift an arm. Robbie can feel his blood pumping, and the crackling in his veins is almost deafening, but then -

"Guess you haven't heard. I don't _hold hands_ with guys." Tori says, and Robbie gets the feeling that she's reminding herself more than him. She's smirking in that bitter way that Robbie's only seen affixed to the lips of people that are one lost night away from waking up in a foreign bed, and again, it physically hurts Robbie dumb little heart.

"Not even for an old friend?" Robbie wheedles, taking another step forward. He lifts his hand again, and then walks it along Tori's arm with his fingers. The anguish – well a thimbleful of it – ebbs from Tori's face, and the distressed lines on her face begin to smooth. She laughs. It doesn't sound like angels, but Robbie thinks it's the best thing Tori's done with her mouth all night – even including kissing him.

"Can't do it. If you've got food, I'll watch movies with you, though." It's not the prize Robbie had wanted; but Tori's concession comes within a hair of it. Making a vague sound of agreement, since speech has temporarily abandoned him, Robbie shoulders the door open, and holds it for Tori. She eyes him warily, a bit like a puppy that's been kicked back one too many time to accept affection, but passes through it anyway.

There are fairy lights strewn through the courtyards, probably from a project the art kids are in the midst of, and it's actually kind of nice. The soft light dances off Tori's face, and he can almost forget how much things have changed. With the light using Tori's eyelashes to draw thin, delicate lines along her cheeks, Robbie almost recognizes her again.

"Y'know. It didn't actually suck to see you again." Tori says contemplatively. Her words clatter into the air with all the tact of a girl Tori had once been the opposite of. Tonight though, Robbie has seen a lot of Jade reflected in Tori. This time though, she pauses and turns to him. Her eyes narrow suspiciously, tinged with vulnerability. "Why are you so nice to me, Robbie Shapiro?"

"I'm uh. I'm always nice to you, Tori Vega." He says, plunging his hand into the pocket he vaguely remembers shoving his keys and wallet into. Tori leans against the building they're standing in front of, Robbie's dorm, and folds her arms again. She's smirking just as she's been doing off and on, all night. He watches her silently, wishing her smirk were a little more triumphant and a little less defeated. Robbie's never seen a smile – or a variation of it, as this case might be – look so sad.

"Why?" Tori fires back, staring at him pointedly. Her shoulders are hunched slightly, and from the way she's sizing him up, Robbie's again reminded of a wounded animal. Frowning at her, he knows what he wants to say – or make a declaration of with a boombox over his head – but he feels pretty certain that would go poorly.

"We're friends." It's a measured response, and Tori looks unconvinced. Distracting himself from the task at hand, namely convincing Tori that he's not just try to get into her pants, Robbie shifts his gaze down into the palm of his hand. Plucking his key card out of the pile of debris sitting there, he runs it over the sensor.

"Still?" Tori asks, sort of quietly, and mostly drowned out by the pop of the door opening. Robbie still hears it though, the sad and twisted little word that it is. It drags his stomach into knots and strangles his throat. He wishes that there were something he could do to seal up the gaping wounds in the girl beside him. Taking a deep breath, Robbie turns to Tori and scours the depths of his consciousness for any unused courage that he might have missed previously.

"We'll always be friends. I'll always –" Whatever it had been, that Robbie had meant to say peters out before he can really get anywhere with it. His tank is on empty, and all the bravery he'd wanted to show is absent. Like a coward, he skips on to another topic. "You know what. Nevermind. Pizza with your movie, Lady Vega?" He says, tacking a joke onto the end of his failure.

Lady Vega, he'd called her that for almost three semesters after Tori had been Homecoming Queen. A tense moment swells up between them, and Robbie wishes he could just let the past die. He wishes -

"Uh, sure…_Robward_." Tori says, plucking another memory out of the vault. Robbie's lips light up with the singular word, that term of endearment that's sprung up all of a sudden.

For the two or so seconds that the word lingers in the air, Robbie's transported to a place in time where Tori had wandered into his house and found him watching Twilight. It had honestly just been the first thing he'd found on the television and – well, Tori had decided that he was definitely Team Edward. He'd been dubbed Robward for the rest of senior year, with the real reason unbeknownst to everybody else.

After that, the lingering tension in the air begins to dissipate, and the shadows cease to stretch on for eternity. Robbie takes the first step into his dorm, and Tori trails after him. She still looks wary, but it's a more organic Tori sort of wary, rather than the kicked puppy kind of wary this time. Those precious few moments that Robbie steals walking through the hallway with Tori, they're bliss. In that long corridor, it's like the two years of separation between them melts away, the all encompassing spectre of change leaves them be, and for a little while he's just Robbie, and she's just Tori.

Stopping in front of a familiar door, Robbie jams his key into the lock – which is reticent to open at the best of times – and attempts to coax his door open. From the corner of his eye, Robbie sees Tori twist and lean against the wall next to him, arms drape loosely over her abdomen. Her shaped eyebrows are resting heavily against her eyes, and Robbie takes it to mean she's in deep thought. After some struggle, the door swings open, and Robbie takes a grateful step inside. Tori however, remains frozen in place against the wall.

"A-are you gonna come in?" Robbie asks, his voice creaking rather feebly as it trips through his lips. Tori's eyebrows jump briefly, and then sink even more deeply over her eyes. Effortlessly, she clambers off the wall, and edges her way past Robbie. She's all sharp lines and her taut lips make Robbie wonder what it is that he's said to have Tori on her haunches again. Things had been going – not well, exactly – but okay.

Robbie stands in the doorway for a moment, hands bunched up rigidly at his sides. Tori's on his bed now, but she's not all bundle up in covers like that one time in high school. She's laying on her side, and the shirt that had barely been there in the first place had ridden up, exposing the golden skin beneath. One of her hands is supporting her head, and the other rests in the crook of her hip. Heat crawls through Robbie's body, and his pulse quickens. In the pale light of his dorm, Tori's sex distilled into female form.

That's the thing, though. Tori was never meant to be this way. In the time since Hollywood Arts, something has crept inside of her, a sickly creature that's hollowed her out and made a home inside. It's become a part of her, a whisper to pervert even the most innocent of words. Robbie wants to speak, but he doesn't know what Tori will hear. Instead, he lurches forward. His footsteps drop heavily onto the carpet, and he forces himself to press on. Tori's eyes watch him, and when Robbie's only a foot or two away, she rolls onto her back. Standing at the edge of his bed, Robbie lowers his gaze to Tori again. Her arms are splayed wide, and her hair has pooled around her head. Stooping down, Robbie runs his fingers through Tori's hair. Bowing his head, Robbie leans in to kiss her, like he's always wanted to. He can feel her warm breath gusting his lips, and – he just can't _do that_. The next thing Robbie knows, he's disentangling his fingers from Tori's hair and dropping to the floor beside his bed. He tells himself that just this once, it's not because he's a coward.

"The fuck, Robbie?" Tori demands, propping herself up on her elbows. In spite of himself, cowers against Aiden's vacant bed and hugs his arms against himself. Under Tori's accusatory glare, Robbie's chest aches with every breath. He feels like upon hitting the ground, all of the muscles in his chest have torn asunder. In the commotion, his heart lies wounded and crushed on the ground somewhere beside him. Taking as deep of a breath as feels safe, Robbie tries to make some sort of sense out of all of the things, most of them conflicting, fighting for dominance in the confines of his skull.

"Did you like, did you actually _want_ to do that." Robbie asks, forcing himself to speak against every instinct that's telling him to retreat, and that a broken girl isn't his problem to fix. An accusatory voice that sounds a lot like Rex even crows that Robbie couldn't even fix a damaged puppet, what chance does he stand with real flesh and blood?

"I _always _want to do that." Tori tells him adamantly, rolling over again – this time onto her stomach - and pushing her elbows together lasciviously. With the low cut of her top, the visual before Robbie stuns him into silence. As he's prone to doing in times of great nervousness, Robbie sucks the soft flesh of the inside of his lips between his teeth. He bites down, and the metallic taste of his blood from when Tori had attacked his lips – god, had it only been an hour ago? – trickles onto his tongue. That reminder is enough though. It forces Robbie to drag his tired bones further into the wilderness that he knows Tori he remembers has burrowed into.

"Tori, it's me. I know I'm not exactly, um…alluring." It's excruciating to drag his insecurities into words, but when Robbie catches the smirk on Tori's lips flicker, the pain fades. He reaches inside and strips away more flesh, digging out the truths he's spent a lifetime burying. "I know you've got this whole reputation thing, now. I don't want. I don't want to be another notch on your – Um. Well, my bedpost, since we're here." The words threaten to die in his throat, but Robbie keeps them alive for just long enough to collide with Tori. She flinches, and the elbows that had been so strategically placed beneath her begin to slide into a more natural position. It's a small victory.

"I'm not - I'm not saying you aren't beautiful, Tori. You are, and like. I know I'm never going to have a chance with a girl like you again. It's just - " Robbie comes to life again after a short pause. Another piece of himself that only hours ago, had been safely tucked away inside of him bleeds into the air. "I've missed you. I know you – that you must have changed your number and deleted your Slap page for some reason. I hope that – If it was me, I'm sorry."

"It wasn't you." Tori's reply creeps through her lips small and raw. She's still lying on her stomach, but the barely restrained lust has dissipated from her posture. Tori's hands have folded on the bed in front of her, and she looks incredibly serious. Robbie swallows, and wraps his arms ever tighter around his body.

He knows he'll need to brace himself for this.


	3. Ceilings & Sunrises

**Thanks for all of the feedback, follows and favorites, guys. As promised - and as a massive thank you - here is chapter three!**

* * *

"_Secrets don't sleep till they're took to the grave  
Signal the sirens, rally the troops  
Ladies and Gentlemen  
It's the moment of truth"_

* * *

In the end, it turns out Robbie has battened down his hatches and prepared for a storm that will never arrive. Tori just peers back at him, her lithe body perched atop his bed. She doesn't lean forward, or elaborate on the blemish from her past that's left a demoralized husk in its wake. Robbie gathers his limbs up, and shakes loose a breath. The movement, minute as it may be, catches Tori off guard. She flinches, and her shoulders quake upwards, trembling with a sudden influx of tension. Stray tendrils of her hair splay across Tori's face, but she doesn't brush them aside straight away. Instead, she curls her limbs close, and rakes her eyes over Robbie, sizing him up for any possible threat. Only when she's sure the danger has passed, does Tori brush the hair aside.

"I'm-I'm sorry, y'know." Robbie splutters, the apology weighing heavily on his tongue. He braces himself on one knee, and begins to rise back to his feet. With the skin of her face drawn taut from the paranoia, Tori watches him the entire time. Her muscles are coiled, and Robbie's acutely aware that she's readying herself to move at the slightest inclination of danger. A memory etched into her body from one too many nights gone astray, Robbie guesses, feeling his gut churn with bile.

"Would you uh – can we watch a movie?" He adds, swaying unsteadily. Whether it's the alcohol bubbling in his veins, or the nervous butterflies blowing hurricanes in his stomach that knock him off balance, Robbie's not sure. Steadying himself, Robbie catches Tori in the middle of shifting. When she stills again, she's facing him with her legs folded Indian style. The suspicion has mostly dropped away from her expression, and Robbie swallows nervously when Tori's lips begin to part.

"You scare me sometimes, Rob." Is all Tori says. The tone is every bit as raw as he'd been expecting. Tori leans forwards, and as dim light cascades over her, Robbie thinks he can see her fear beginning to recede again.

At a glacial pace, Tori's sleek muscles carry her towards Robbie. Folding his arms over his abdomen, he clutches fearfully at his shirt. Tori's shirt rides up, and Robbie's breath catches in his throat at the sight of her lower back. His lungs are just beginning to burn when Tori crosses through another slab of light coming into the room. Before the windows limited glow can chase the shadows all the way from her face, Tori edges past it, bleeding back into the night. Robbie's fingers slacken, and slip away from his shirt, dropping to his sides. Tori pushes off her palms, straightening her back, and kneeling in front of Robbie. They're almost face to face, and he's very aware of the sort caress of her breath.

"Tori?" He asks, somewhat unnecessarily.

"No duh. I've been here the whole time." Tori rolls her eyes, and turns her attention to a thread on Robbie's bedding that she's begun to pick at. Robbie lingers near her, again unsure of his next move. Tori's voice has veered back to the devil may care college tone he's heard all night. He swears the sudden switches in her mood are going to give him whiplash.

"Uh, are you okay?" Tori queries after a swollen moment. Her voice is slow and cautious; the words creep through her lips as no more than a murmur. Robbie waits for her to look up, but Tori continues to avoid meeting his eyes. Instead, she artfully directs her gaze in the direction of the wall behind him.

"Yeah." Robbie says, lips drawn tight like when Rex had been pulling his strings. Tori's features are still obscured, shadows hiding her intentions in plain sight. That lasts for another moment or so, and then a car barrels along the street outside – most likely heading in the direction of the student parking lot.

The vehicle's golden lights skitter over Tori's face, and if only for an instant, the darkness melts away. Her deep brown irises are edged with a flickering, melancholy hope. Robbie's never been more thankful to have been placed beside one of the only roads on campus. Even still, the light is gone before he can quite make out what exactly that hope had been. Robbie trudges backwards, placing several extra inches between Tori and himself, until he can't feel her breath against his face anymore.

"Shall we, uh. So…that movie?" Robbie can't keep the desperation out of his voice. It's not that he's so interested in a movie, it's just – something babbling in the background would be a nice buffer between Tori and himself. The silence has already pulled so many insecurities out of Tori; he doesn't know how much more she can take.

"Yeah, a movie." Tori replies, jerking her head in agreement. Her voice wanders through the room, seeming lost. Even through the murk, Robbie catches Tori's eyebrows sweeping together, meeting in the middle of her face as if in disagreement over what to do next. Tori pauses, and then a compromise is reached and the muscles in her face slacken with a question. "What do you. Um, what movies do you have?" She asks, sitting back on her calves, and collapsing into a pile of Tori on Robbie's bed.

"Hah. Um -" Stooping down, Robbie suddenly feels as if Tori is hogging all of the shadows in the room, and he's under a spotlight. Feeling incredibly self conscious, he braces himself with one arm, and tugs the draw beneath his bed open with the other. His spindly limbs complain, and the arm beneath him rattles on the verge of collapse, but Robbie holds his balance in the end. He's been nothing but stringy muscles and jittery bones for as long as he can remember, he's learnt to compensate. "I have pretty much everything." He finishes, eyes flickering between Tori and the endless sea of DVD cases – some in better condition than others – that's slowly emerging between them.

"This has uh, grown." Tori muses, taking a shallow breath and leaning over the edge of the bed. Tori's hair surges forth as well, cascading over her shoulders, and again obscuring most of her face. Robbie can see her lips though, edged with light that's seeping under the door from the hallway. There's a smile tugging at either side of her mouth, but it's carefully smothered by Tori's will to remain neutral. Robbie's eyes wander from Tori's face, following the smooth line of her tanned arm, and then skating over her slender fingers. Swiping an unruly sprig of hair from his face, Robbie sees deep red nail hovering over a title he's _oh so_ familiar with.

"_The scissoring?" _Robbie wonders aloud, voice tinged with doubt. Tori's entire arm jolts at the sound of his voice, jerking away from the movie as if his words ignited the air itself. He doesn't even have to look at Tori to realize she's quickly erecting walls around her past again. Robbie gnaws at his bottom lip until he can almost taste the copper. Cursing himself, he tears at the walls Tori's thrown up, and tries to get back inside. "I'm not – we can totally watch it. It's just that you never did build up that immunity."

Swallowing hard, Robbie prepares himself for Tori to take flight. Her body is drawn taut, and her eyes flicker in the door's direction. Having braced himself for disappointment, the musical note of laughter that escapes Tori's lips catches Robbie off guard. He blinks once, and then a few more times at the sight before him. Tori's numb lips spread into a smile, and unlike the barking laughter from earlier, she sounds at ease. It yanks the melancholy from Robbie, and briefly, the whirlwind that's been their Saturday night stills for a moment of levity.

"You were a lousy teacher though. You know that, right?" Tori states, teeth sinking into her bottom lip mischievously. She looks at Robbie through her eyelashes, and instead of grinding to a halt, a smile infiltrates his features. Stooping down, Robbie pinches The Scissoring's weathered case between his index finger and thumb. Heaving his arm upwards, Robbie plucks the movie from between its _somehow_ inferior sequel, and another horror movie he can't quite remember the plot to.

"I remember us watching it every Thursday Beck wasn't hosting a movie night." Tori recalls, eyes glassing over as memories flitter before them. With her pause, Robbie hovers over the drawer of DVD's for a moment, uncertain of whether he should move or not. "You'd come over to my house looking all determined, and then we wouldn't even make it past the opening credits before diving for the blanket." She adds, words drifting easily through her lips. They aren't practised, flowing freely because they're _Tori's_ words. It's _her_, and not just the hollow words of a meticulously crafted college image. He thinks maybe those walls aren't so in penetrable after all.

"We'll – yeah, we can definitely try watching it again." Robbie hacks up, belatedly, agreeing to something that's long since been decided. Instinctively, and out of embarrassment, Robbie lowers his eyes to the case loosely held in his spindly fingers. He runs his eyes over the bloody scissors at the centre of the design. Bits of gore hang from them, and his stomach churns unhappily, rebelling at the prospect of dealing with The Scissoring yet again.

"Uh, about that food I mentioned earlier -" Tori says gently, swiping a hand across her mouth. "I _really_ don't want it anymore." She finishes decisively, nose scrunching up in distaste. Even with her face twisted like that, Tori looks impossibly beautiful. Gentle in a way that Robbie thought all of the leather and hard smiles had destroyed.

With the sweetness of uncovering Tori's soft underbelly still on his tongue, Robbie spins on his heel and treks towards the television and the DVD player that rests beside it. Coming to a teetering halt, Robbie pops the DVD from its case, well he tries to. The damned disc hangs onto the case tenaciously, and it takes him several attempts to free it. Tori's laughter skitters around the room behind him, and Robbie's not sure whether to grin or grimace. He's undeniably happy to have dredged up at least a few aspects of the girl he remembers, it's just -

"Hey Rob," Tori's voice breaks through whatever revelation he'd been having. Blowing loose a breath, Robbie turns back to Tori. She's sitting at the far edge of the bed now, bunched up against the wall with her hands curled in her lap. She looks apprehensive again, but not in the same way as before. Her muscles aren't as tightly coiled, and it's more – it's familiar. "Can you – are you going to come and sit with me while we watch it?" Tori asks, lacing her fingers together and letting locks of hair crowd her vision. Her voice comes through her lips cracked and raw, like boys are still scary, and romance is something new.

"You know I couldn't watch this alone." Robbie replies easily. The words come to him alongside a grin, and for a fleeting second he's brave enough for the both of them. That's easy when Tori looks _so_ tentative and not at all sure about the prospect of curling up and watching a movie.

"You know, I don't bite. Well ah, not usually – unless you like that kind of thing?" Tori calls over to him, as if she's comprised entirely of waggling eyebrows and suddenly unconvincing bravado. Robbie doesn't seize up, or flinch. Tori's voice is almost totally bereft of the predatory tone that had drenched it previously, and flung him onto his haunches.

A moment passes, and Tori's eyebrows wind up their routine. When they come to a standstill, her lips - the ones that had seemed so lifeless in a room full of people – come to life with another smile. Beneath her kohl rimmed eyes it's unfamiliar, broad and unabashed. It's the sound of another wall falling, and what prompts Robbie Shapiro to dive at his bed.

He collides face first with the mattress, and Tori bounces into the air as Robbie lands in a tangle of splayed limbs. His teeth slam together painfully, and momentarily Robbie theorizes that he may in fact be too stupid for college. That's before Tori's amused giggling – the sounds of ghosts from the past – light up the very air itself. When the bed ceases its convulsions, Robbie looks over his shoulder at Tori. Her eyes are crinkled with happiness, and laughter is still etched in her lips. It's all born of Robbie's complete lack of grace, and suddenly he doesn't feel so useless. With her amusement, Tori's irises muddy in much the same way a stream might in a storm. When she settles, her eyes are different. Lighter, maybe. Robbie even thinks he can see flecks of Topaz in them. They're shining just like her cheesy locker from high school, just like he's wanted all night. Like a ridiculous cliché of a boy, Robbie gets caught up in Tori's eyes and they stare at one another for a long time. It's the sudden stab of The Scissoring's score that breaks the spell.

Robbie doesn't even have to look away to know it's The Scissoring's DVD menu. It's Tori who jolts her gaze in the direction of the sudden intrusion. Having detected the origin of this latest threat, Tori's limbs loosen again. She doesn't wait for Robbie's glacially slow reflexes to carry him toward the remote on his bedside table. Instead, Tori oozes over Robbie, her curves sleek and skating against Robbie she plucks the small grey slab from its place. Briefly, her eyes catch Robbie's, and her movements brutally seize up. In her position hovering above him, a block of light from the street – maybe the same one as before - has bestowed all of its illumination across Tori's face. It's maybe the closest Robbie's been Tori without her attempting to maul him, and _fuck_. She's so beautiful without all of the heaviness and forced mystique. It's almost a relief when Tori slips back to her side of the bed, bleeding back into the shadows. Robbie's sure he would have kissed her and ruined everything. He can't let himself become just another one of _them_. Those guys who have used and been used in return.

In spite of the way Robbie's heart is flitting nervously in his chest, he eventually settles into his space beside Tori. Silence crawls over the room again, but it doesn't quite stagnate like earlier. The Scissoring chugs along in the background, jolting from scene to scene and strangling horrified sounds out of Tori. At some point in the film, Tori slides away from the wall and without even thinking about it, Robbie's tangling his fingers through hers. Robbie's heart stills when Tori's eyes flicker away from the screen and land on him. A flush crawls onto her cheeks, and Robbie wilts in preparation for disappointment.

"Uh, Rob." Tori's voice barely pushes it's way through her lips. The words just barely struggles between her teeth, but Robbie catches a variation of his name in there somewhere. Fraught with anxiety, Robbie watches helplessly as Tori's chest rises with a sharp intake of air. Mirroring her action, Robbie sucks in a deep breath too.

"Don't like, make a _thing_ out of this."

This time, all that Tori is saying positively charges from her mouth. Her eyes crawl from her lap, and meet Robbie's. If there had been a flicker of nerves in her eyes at the door, it's a raging thunderstorm now. Robbie's words get lost somewhere in his throat when Tori darts forward. She leans over Robbie, and her lips press against his skin. A fleeting caress on his cheek later, and Tori's scrambling backwards again. She collapses onto her back with a relieved sigh, and Robbie bites back the smile that's pulling so insistently at the corners of his mouth. Flexing the fingers Tori's just wrenched herself away from; Robbie lifts his hand toward his cheek and touches the skin.

"I told you not to make a thing out of it." Tori hisses, dark eyes focused pointedly on the movie. Her mouth sets determinedly into a hard frown, but this time it's struggling at the edges. There's the slightest hint of a smile cowering behind it, and Robbie can almost feel the universe realigning itself. The lack of true malice in Tori Vega's voice is just one such thing falling back into place.

"I'm not making a _thing_ over it, you know. It's just -" Robbie takes a shallow breath, pausing to cobble together something resembling the right thing to say. Tori's eyes flit from the television, pupils almost swallowing the coffee ring around them as she carefully regards Robbie. The sight in front of him, and the tingling etched into his cheek combine to crowd Robbie's thoughts. "You're a thing." He finally hacks up, frustrating himself and amusing Tori in equal measure.

"Soo making a thing over it." Tori drawls, lazy syllables stretching out for added emphasis. Her eyes circle around in their sockets sardonically, dragging a laugh out of Robbie. The anger he'd been attempting to foster unravels almost immediately. "Also, I'm crashing here." She adds, stretching into a yawn. Robbie just nods along, because it's all too easy to agree with Tori when her hands are laced over her head, and her back is arced.

He's _so_ making a thing over it, and he wonders if she is too.

* * *

Rays of sunlight bleed into Robbie's dorm, and his brain throbs painfully, as if upset about the sudden intrusion. He can't quite bare to peel his eyelids apart, but it's plainly obvious that the impolite source of light is streaming through the window above Aiden's bed. Running a hand through his messy spools of hair, Robbie tries to will his body into a state of higher awareness. Anything above corpse - which he's currently hovering around – will do, actually. Robbie stretches his back and sprawls over the bed, his elbow knocking into –

Nothing.

He blinks once, and then once more. The haze of sleep scatters entirely with the realization that he's alone. Sitting upright, Robbie pulls his gaze from one corner of the room to the other, searching for a sign of the girl he'd fallen asleep beside. Other than a few slight creases on the usually smooth side of Robbie's bed, it's as if she were never there. A ghost from his past, and nothing more. He finds himself scrubbing the sides of his head and wondering if the last three weeks had all been a dream – or actually, a nightmare. Robbie's almost convinced himself of it until a voice cracks through the air from the doorway.

"The Vega, huh?"

It's Aiden, and as usual each of his hands are clinched around an energy drink. This week, they're a rather nuclear shade of green, and Robbie's stomach burbles with expectation. Aiden laughs at that – a booming sound, because he's a sadist – and hurls one of them in Robbie's direction. He scrambles, and just barely wraps his fingers around the can before it tumbles to the floor.

"Her name is -" Robbie stops himself, and shakes his head. He lets the subject of Tori's first name slide wordlessly off his tongue. To everyone else she's Vega, all sharp edges, one night stands and locked off emotions. Robbie wouldn't want to dull her edges, not yet, while he's still trying to figure out why they're there. "How'd you know?" He corrects himself, popping the tab of his drink and taking a cautious sip.

"Check your table man, her calling card." Aiden says dispassionately, falling onto his bed and kicking his feet up. Robbie sucks in a deep breath, and it rattles around in his lungs. Just as Aiden had mentioned, there's a crumpled piece of paper on his bedside table. Marking it differently to all of the other stray pieces of paper strewn through the room is a deep red lipstick kiss.

"I'll save you the time, Berto. If you unfold it, Vega will have written _I'll see you before you see me_. You'll know how _good _you were by the amount of exes and ohs at the end of it." Robbie goes cold with the portrait of Tori that Aiden has conjured. He takes another sip of his drink, clenching it harder then usual, and trying to wash the image away. It's taken root though, and now it's bleeding into the glimmering memories he'd held to close to his heart. He can feel the tendrils curling, readying themselves to work their way into the chambers of his heart.

With his blood buzzing in his veins, Robbie picks up the paper. His heart stills itself, and he can't bring himself to breath in the instant that it takes him to pull open Tori's – or maybe _That Vega Girl's_ – note. Aiden rolls over, with apprehension lining his usually placid features. Robbie stares back at him nervously, and then runs his eyes over the loopy scrawl of Tori's writing, which is at least familiar.

_Sorry Robward,_

_Old habits die hard._

_Last night was __fun__ nice though. _

_I'll definitely see you around._

_Tori_

It's not a declaration of love, or anything close, but Robbie feels a commotion begin to rise in his chest anyway. His heart is pounding in his chest, pumping hope through Robbie's veins in the form of a first name. It's sad and more then a little pathetic, but it's all Robbie's got, and he thinks he's more then anybody else on this campus has stumbled across. Clasping his drink with one hand, Robbie reaches up and cups the side of his cheek that Tori's lips had touched down on. Even today, when sleep has supposedly washed the details of last night away, he can remember every contour of Tori's face. The dark coffee tone of her iris, and the defined lines of her cheekbones. He can even remember the rigid lines of her hair, and how there should have been waves there. It feels stupid for his heart and his mind to be so very focused on one person he's scarcely seen in years, but Robbie can't bring himself to try and smother the feeling.

He shakes a breath loose, and just _hopes._


	4. Abstract Lust & Missed Classes

**Sorry this is so frigging late, guys. If it makes you feel any better I do have the next couple of chapters mostly done. Spam me with some reviews and I'll try and have another up before the end of the week. Also, as always massive shout out to my beta – he keeps me flying right and catches me out when I write something stupid. Cheers bro!**

* * *

"_My secrets are buried now_

_From my heart and my bones catch a fever_

_When it cuts you up this deep_

_It's hard to find a way to breathe"_

* * *

Monday morning, it must be said, is lacking in the dramatic flair of Sunday. After he's shut off the blaring noise of his alarm, Robbie rolls onto his back and peers up at the roof. Limb by limb, awareness slowly bleeds into his body. Finally scraping himself out of bed, Robbie absently lurches into a morning routine that's painted in shades of grey. Armed with a towel and his _Manbag,_ as Aiden has termed it, Robbie meanders into the bathroom three doors down the hallway. Pulling the door shut, Robbie wanders over to one of the room's many basins. Pushing a hand through his scraggly mop of hair, Robbie peers glumly into the mirror and comes to the conclusion that today, like almost every Monday, will be a hat day.

Fifteen minutes later, Robbie shoulders his way through the main entrance to his dormitory and steps into the morning air. Light washes over him in golden waves, and with the sun still making its way to the top of the sky, the wind has a slight bite. It pushes against Robbie, and the slight chill that sinks into his body is enough to finally jumpstart his brain. After that, his heels don't drag so heavily. Easing into the week, Robbie wanders through the various paths and corridors that will eventually lead him to his Existentialism in Literature and Film lecture. Coming upon that minor detail, Robbie thinks _easing_ might not be the right way to term his Monday morning. Whoever had decided existentialism would be a suitable Monday morning topic _must_ have been a sadist. Robbie is still ruminating over this when a familiar morning sight of Dwinelle Hall crawls into his line of vision.

Leaning against the ivory wall is a splash of darkness that halts Robbie in his tracks. He blinks, trying to reconcile the sight of Tori actually being early for their morning class with reality. There's a lit cigarette dangling from one of her hands, forgotten and fading to ash. Clasped considerably more carefully in Tori's other hand is a slab of hardware that he remembers all too well. He recalls it being almost permanently attached to Tori's hand in high school. Like a wire tripped, the memory pulls the ends of Robbie's lips into a soft smile.

It's all he's got, really. Other than the phone still resting in her palm, nothing else about Tori rings familiar. Well, not in the sense that he can picture her turning up in the hallways of Hollywood Arts looking as she does now. Tori is wearing a black sweatshirt and its thin, shimmering material isn't quite enough to cover the soft contours of her stomach. In spite that, Robbie gets the impression Tori is attempting remain out of sight. The hood of her sweatshirt is pulled over her face, and her eyes are masked behind a thick pair of pitch black sunglasses. With her ripped jeans skirting the border of decency, and the way she's hidden the world behind twin panes of glass, Tori Vega is a study in duality.

Apprehensively, Robbie takes a step towards her. Some time between that first step and his next, Tori's coffee stained eyes spill over the tops of her glasses. The left side of her mouth lifts upright, and she smirks at the sight of Robbie stumbling. Taking that as an invitation, Robbie takes a few more careful steps in Tori's direction, swallowing the distance between them.

"You _still_ have that hat?" Tori asks, looking him over casually. Getting the distinct impression that Tori is doing her best to appear distant and even contemptuous at the prospect of social contact, Robbie grinds to a halt. After a moment, he shrugs off the barb and leans rigidly against the wall beside her. Tori's an artwork, an oil painting composed by languid lines and practiced precision. Next to her, Robbie feels like a badly drawn boy in his ugly salmon coloured beanie.

"Of course I _still _have it." Robbie crabs back, reaching up and smoothing out his beanie self consciously. One side of Tori's lips lifts, and she smirks at how easily Robbie can be thrown into a state of disarray. "I still have a lot of things from Hollywood Arts. I even have that Tweetie Bird T-shirt that you got me for my 17th birthday." He blurts out, looking over to Tori. The smirk on her lips blossoms into something that's like a hint of a smile. Robbie looks at Tori, and then surveys the scene around them. There is a dusting of birds among the grass, and the sunlight is co-mingling with their sweet serenade. It's almost sickeningly picturesque, and the vivid technicolour of it all reminds Robbie of old times. He thinks about life at Hollywood Arts, when the sharpest edge to Tori had been her cheekbones.

"Oh course you do." Tori drawls, carefully straining any enthusiasm from her tone. Remaining silent, Robbie regards Tori carefully. He looks down at the ground and thinks about the gulf that's suddenly emerged between them. Without even moving, Tori's shunted him away. Robbie guesses it's her way of wrestling back control of the situation. It really is an easy way to push somebody onto their haunches, he surmises. Even knowing that, it's not good enough though. The fact that Tori feels the need to hold him at arms length burrows into Robbie. It works its way beneath his skin, and embeds itself within him as a nervous itch. The feeling overtakes him, buzzing over his nerves until he can't focus on anything else.

"So uh. What are we doing this morning, Robbie?"

Robbie's mind is all bogged down by his thoughts, and it takes him a moment to realize Tori is speaking to him again. Blinking, he peers over at Tori. The thick black glasses that had so easy concealed her eyes up to this point have slipped down her nose. Tori's dark eyes are fixed to him, peering over the top of the frames. Her eyebrows have linked above her nose and the air between them isn't fraught with ice any longer. Adjusting his posture, Robbie leans forward and rubs the back of his neck. It's not itchy, and he doesn't think he'd actually gotten whiplash from Tori's sudden shift in demeanour. It's just – it's his _thing_. It calms him for some reason.

"Uh," The word, if you can call it that, trickles unnecessarily through Robbie's lips. He falters, and his eyebrows sink over his eyes. "Class, maybe. Yes?" He coughs up, practically oozing charm and charisma. Rife with feelings of inadequacy, Robbie sinks against the wall behind him and just wishes he could sink into it. _Class, maybe. Yes?_ He thinks it might possibly be the least cool thing that could have come through his lips.

"We're definitely not doing _that_."

Tori shakes her head disapprovingly and Robbie's eyebrows dip even lower. He thinks they're on the verge of swallowing his eyes entirely. There's a spark of laughter in the air after that. Robbie's eyes creep over in the direction of its source.

"What_ are_ we doing then, Tori?" Robbie asks loudly, working very hard to force exasperation onto his face. His eyebrows jump into an agitated position high above the frames of his glasses. Locked in that position, and with Tori as his laugh track, Robbie wonders how much he resembles a misplaced sitcom character.

When Tori's laughter peters out a few stray giggles later, Robbie notices that she's forcibly smoothing out her expression. If he looks hard enough, there are probably gears turning somewhere within the endless black of her pupils. The urge to sigh rises up in his throat, but Robbie claws it back down. Instead, he just waits. Eventually Tori's mind will process what he's said and convert her words into those of _That Vega Girl_.

"We're ditching, you know -" Surely enough, just like Robbie had expected, Tori's reply saunters through her lips with all of the practiced cool that Robbie suspects will eventually nip at his fingers like frostbite and turn them black. Less predictably, Tori's confidence wilts and then crumbles into a dramatic silence less than a sentence into her response. Robbie follows her eyes over to a shadowy corner of the quad. Three spidery figured are huddled around one glowing orange dot. There's a suspicious looking smoke wrapping its tendrils around them, and Robbie would recognize that laughter anywhere.

"Uh, we're playing hooky." Tori finishes, attempting to waggle her eyebrows playfully. The way her eyes keep flitting to the figures in the distance renders it a pale imitation of levity, but Robbie hacks up laughter anyway. Right now, all of a sudden, Robbie thinks that there is enough tension in the air for the weight of a failed joke to crush them both.

"You can – I don't mind if you want to hang out with your friends instead." Robbie offers, prying the words from his tongue with the strongest of reticence. That jerks Tori's eyes back in his direction. She winds her limbs towards her core, closely and carefully, narrowing her eyes at Robbie like he's suddenly become a threat.

"What friends?"

"Those uh, those guys smoking." Robbie mentions, hopefully sounding casual as he throws his thumb in the smoke's direction with a jerky motion. The words slice Robbie's lips on their way through, another admission that he's still not good enough for Tori. It stings, but that's what love has always been in Robbie's experience. Grimacing at the suddenly southern turn his morning has taken, Robbie tries to paper over the problem with a sardonic grin and a self deprecating tale. "You know, the people you sit with in the lectures. Like up the back of the theatre. I've uh, I haven't been watching you or anything. It's just you know, I sat up there one time and got a nosebleed. It's uh, _high_ back there." He says, eyes flitting between Tori and her friends uneasily.

"So you were like worried or something?" The suddenly meaningful look Tori is shooting in his direction catches Robbie off guard. He's just told her a story about his body's pathetic constitution, and he thinks Tori is staring at him as though he's just ridden into town on a golden steed. Sunlight dances over Tori's face, and it's pulling sparks of electricity from the flecks of gold in her eyes. He wonders if that's because of him and something he's doing, if maybe he's special. That thought in itself is so terrifying that Robbie prepares himself to launch into another jittery attempt at allowing Tori to shake him off.

"I'm well, not worried. But yeah, sort of. I know that's lame and your friends -" Robbie's just lurching into gear when Tori's hand darts between them. It lingers against his lips, and all that Robbie planned to say dies on his tongue. Tori lowers her head and looks over in his direction through her long eyelashes. Robbie gets the impression that they're Tori's idea of a buffer, one last line of defence - albeit a flimsy one - between her vulnerabilities and the rest of the world.

"Seriously Rob, they're not – I don't_ have_ friends here. They're just people I sit by. I just can't -" Tori spits the bitter tasting words at the ground, and then pauses to watch them sizzle. Time seems to halt, and the moment settles between them. It lingers and refuses to pass on. It swells, and Robbie swallows nervously as Tori's eyebrows clench together. When the levy finally breaks, and time resumes its passage, Tori is staring intently in his direction. Not really knowing what else to do, Robbie balls his hands up and nervously flicks his thumb over the inside of his curled index finger. "They're not my friends, Rob." She finally says, serious eyes never once wavering.

"I am though. Your friend, right?"

The words have crept into the air before Robbie's brain has had a chance to pull process them. Old habits die hard and he's never been very good at sounding smooth. Even though he's a social misfit, Tori's lips rise into the most delicate smile Robbie thinks he's ever seen. It barely attaches itself to Tori's lips, but it envelops him. The warmth creeps through his lips, crawls along his vocal cords, and seeps into his heart. The tension is still there, hovering in the background, but Robbie can feel its grip on them beginning to slacken. He feels – it's just, it's a very good feeling.

"You – yeah, of course you are." Tori replies, her tiny smile beginning to bloom into something more. Robbie just stands there and jerks his head into a nod, because he's never really sure where he stands with Tori. She's referred to him as a friend, but it's just – the Tori he's standing beside is battered and torn. She's littered with pitfalls and dead ends. He thinks a wrong word now might strike the happiness from her face, but silence might be worse.

"So, uh. This morning…you want breakfast?" Robbie asks cautiously, edging away from the subject of friends, and why Tori's become so poor in what had once been her greatest source of wealth.

"You're offering to buy me breakfast." Tori says, and it's not a question. Her eyes narrow suspiciously and that happy feeling in Robbie's chest begins to waver. Robbie knows one of his feet is dangling over the side of a ledge in a trap Tori's unwillingly set. "What do you want?"

The question is either a rope to pull him away from the metaphorical ledge Robbie's found himself on, or a noose from which to hang from. He cycles through all that he knows about Tori, past and present, searching for a way out. If he can help it, Robbie wants to save them both. Averting his eyes away from Tori's heavy gaze, Robbie considers his options for one last moment before making his decision and sealing his fate.

"Honestly, I do want something from you, why wouldn't I? You're a beautiful girl." Robbie's careful to keep his eyes locked with Tori's, even as her expression hardens. Just barely holding himself away from a flinch, Robbie takes a deep breath and tells himself that it's all going to work out in the end. "I want to hold your hand, and take you out for Monday waffles. I want you Tori Vega, I want you to be my friend again and – _yeah_."

"What, because I'm _swell_?" Tori bites out, tearing at a wound that never did heal properly. It's ruthless, but then again Robbie had sort of expected it. Somewhere along the way, time has hardened Tori. He doesn't know how, but he's seen some of her rough edges. The road to Tori's heart is a deadly corridor these days, and it only becomes more and more gnarled the deeper one might care to venture. Swallowing a lungful of air, Robbie stifles his fear and presses on.

"Yeah, no. I just –" He says abruptly. Tori cocks an eyebrow and regards him dubiously, but Robbie ignores it. "I'm not – I've never been cool. I just, I sort of miss when we'd do that. The waffles. Not the hand holding. That's – I just think it would be nice." Robbie splutters, feeling like he's lost his footing. Screwing his eyes shut to avoid Tori's soul-staring gaze, Robbie's dismaying to see a scene flickering on the back of his eyelids. He's stumbled at the latest long drop off in trying to edge closer to Tori's heart. He's plummeting into an endless dark and –

"Oh fine. I'm warning you though Rob, this will probably suck."

The words register with Robbie's brain an instant before he feels Tori's fingers fill the spaces between his. Right before he opens his eyes again, the scene flickering on the insides of Robbie's eyelids changes. He's not plummeting anymore, golden fingers have ensnared him, and he's being pulled onto a ledge. It's Tori and her eyes are sparkling.

"We're only doing the hand holding thing once though, Shapiro." Tori hisses, fingers curling tightly around Robbie's hand. It feels like Tori's trying to strangle agreement from him, but it _sounds_ like she's mostly just reminding herself of that fact.

An incredulous shake jerks Robbie's head from side to side. "Shapiro? What are you, Jade?" He asks, lips curling upward as a grin spreads over them. Tori gapes at him for a moment after that, maybe because his voice has barrelled through several walls behind her skin. She inhales a deep breath, and then straightens her spine.

"_What are you, Jade?_" Tori spits, hurling Robbie's barb back in his direction. It's a twisted wreckage when it leaves Tori's mouth, sharper than Robbie had ever intended it to be. That's Tori these days, though. She's a master of locating a weak spot or a blind side, and then jamming her nails into it. Flinching, Robbie's grip loosens on Tori's hand. He can feel his palm beginning to slip away from hers, and then –

There's nothing. Tori's fingers curl, and she holds him in place.

"So, uh. Breakfast?" Her tone is slow, almost like an apology. It's tentative though, a controlled burst of words. Robbie just nods, accepting that it is what it is. He'll take what he can and be grateful for it. He'll let his mind wander and when Tori's not saying anything, he'll imagine that holding her hand is everything he thought it would be. He'll imagine that he's more than a meal ticket to a broken girl.

For fleeting specs in time, he'll even believe it too.

Almost.


	5. Swing For Cynicism

**Whoa, I actually kept to my promise of updating again. I know the pace has slowed here a bit, but this scene kind of just kept getting longer and longer, more out of my hands. But yeah...**

* * *

"_Eyes like a car crash_

_I know I shouldn't look but I can't turn away_

_Body like a whiplash_

_Salt my wounds but I can't heal the way_

_I feel about you"_

* * *

Jet Brew Coffee.

As he shoulders open the door, Robbie notices that far from sauntering, Tori skulks inside. The door swings shut behind them somewhat ominously and Robbie feels Tori's fingers clench around his. Robbie observes her through the corner of his eye, a lump beginning to swell in his throat. Tori's eyes are manic in their sockets, desperately following the scraps of information bouncing off the walls.

She's on edge and Robbie knows it's because of him. This whole, and he's such an idiot for suggesting it, _holding hands_ thing was never a good idea. Letting his arm hang loosely at his side, Robbie slacks his grip on Tori. He's never been a brave person, but sacrifice and cliché have always been his forte. He really does care about Tori, so yeah – _If you love somebody, let them go_ – all that noble crap.

Except after all of that, Tori's fingers remain interlocked with his. Their eyes meet and electricity crackles in the air, drowning out the rest of the world. Tori's lips pull tight and it's more a grimace then a smile. She doesn't hack at him with vicious words or cast him off though. This moment, standing united under the glare of the public eye, Robbie thinks it might be significant.

"Huh, they no longer offer cheese coated waffles." Tori muses, oddly clinical in her phrasing. Robbie wonders whether the meticulously perfected indifference in her voice is Tori's way of separating the past from the present. Cheese coated waffles; Cat had ordered them _every_ weekend in senior year.

"Those were – I think they made me sick for eleven straight days when Cat made me eat some." Robbie recalls, a pained yowl emanating from his stomach providing the soundtrack to that particular memory.

"I remember you_ hiring _me to be your nurse." A tiny smile finds its way onto Tori's face. Her eyes roam around room along with it, maybe tinged with guilt or mistrust. After a pause, Robbie becomes suddenly very aware that Tori's thumb is flickering softly across the skin of his hand. It's a shockingly intimate gesture, and as much as Robbie wants to draw attention to it, he doesn't. Rattled beyond belief, he just affixes his gaze to the menu looming over them.

Tori's laughing with the memory, like really laughing. It's a beautiful sound, really it is. Robbie can't focus on it though, not entirely. As she'd been speaking, Robbie had still felt Tori's thumb stroke his hand. He wonders if she's realised what she'd been doing. The gesture had been, it had been so intimate. She had to know, right?

"Rob, are you okay?" Tori asks, knocking her hip against him. All of a sudden her eyebrows are sweeping down and crushing the space above her eyes. There's a strange sort of comfort in seeing that expression fly across Tori's face. It's familiar and it feels more authentic than the emphatic callousness he's become acquainted with.

Running his hand over his larynx, Robbie clears his throat and just tries not to destroy the moment. "I was just – even without the cheesy waffles and the ensuing Nurse Tori, this is nice." Robbie answers, quickly swinging his jaw shut to prevent anything stupid – well, stupider - rushing through his lips.

"Aw, you miss her?" Tori chews on her bottom lip, the endless black of her iris flashing with a predatory gleam. It's then that the line shuffles forward three halting steps. Offered the perfect cover through that brief flurry of movement, Tori slides closer to Robbie. Her lips ghost over his neck, breath warm as it flitters across his skin.

"I know exactly where to get myhands on a nurses outfit if you should suddenly fall _under the weather_." Tori whispers discretely, emphasizing all the right words and setting Robbie's skin ablaze with gooseflesh. When Tori drifts back into her place beside him, her lips are caught between a smile and a smirk. Muted rays of sunlight are caressing her skin and -

"Next!"

Robbie shifts his gaze away from Tori, throwing it in the direction of the voice. Stark in front of them, and no longer obscured by a throng of people, is the front counter. Robbie feels his cheeks ignite. Somewhere between Tori's husky words and the way she'd oozed all over him, they'd become the next two people in line.

Taking a few clunky steps forward, Robbie finds himself standing a few feet away from the campuses only seemingly perpetually displeased Jet Brew Coffee employee. The unwelcoming barista, Darren according to the nametag clinging to his apron, is a spindly insect of a man. Somehow he's all bones and shadows as he artfully straddles stylish detachment toward the peons surrounding him and palpable irritation towards his menial job.

"Uh, can I please – can I get two orders of Waffles. Both with uh, cream and maple syrup." Robbie peels the order from moth-bitten memories of senior year. Tori and himself, sometimes along with Beck or Cat had made it their thing to go out for breakfast the Sunday after a big production, exam or party. Standing beside Tori and confronted with a snarky barista, Robbie feels seventeen and love-struck again.

"You ordering any coffee, you know, in this _coffee shop_?" Darren drawls, actually summoning a thimble full of venom into his question. Stricken, Robbie's eyes widen behind his glasses.

"Yeah, uh. Please."

Robbie pauses for a brief moment, considering the last order of drinks he'd made for Tori and himself. She'd deviated from her usual request. In retrospect, he probably should have known that was the tipping point where everything was going to fall apart. Darren's jaw tightens, patience winding tight and liable to snap. Spluttering, Robbie coughs up an order to placate their barista. "Uh, can I get one Caramel Macchiato? Um…and a coffee. No sugar, with soy milk. _Please_ don't spit in them?"

"Your wish is my command, _master_. Anything for an SNL alumni." Darren sneers, barrelling through a dispassionate flourish and an insincere bow before finally departing with a condescending smile.

"Friendly guy." Robbie comments, dry wit cracking against the air. Tori jerks her head in his direction, the movement is unusually awkward. She stares at him, lips withering to a thin line.

"He's uh," Tori's detached and cool with the first word, faltering with the second when Robbie's smile shatters against the floor. Trailing off, Tori drops her head and glares spitefully at the ground. A stark, heavy moment hangs in the air, but once it passes Tori's eyes swing back in Robbie's direction.

"Fuck it," Tori mumbles eventually, levelling a meaningful look in Robbie's direction. "He's nobody. Honestly. Sorry for the, you know – sorry for being a bitch." She states gruffly, hanging a crooked smile on her lips.

Darren's service is predictably enough, unsatisfactory. Instead of actually giving them one of the table numbers clustered on the counter, he leaves Robbie and Tori to mill around the counter. After that it's hard to tell when they begin talking. Not just batting small talk back and forth, but actually _talking_. By the time Darren returns, sour as ever, Robbie is vividly gesticulating as he recalls the mess his first frat party had lead to. Tori's cheeks are flushed; eyes clenched shut as her chest heaves laughter at Robbie's account.

It's a beautiful thing.

The thing about beauty, and maybe that's what makes it so striking, is that it's always fleeting. When Tori's eyelids flitter open again, and Darren veers into her line of vision, it's as if a switch is flipped. Something goes dead, or maybe whirs to life, in Tori. Something like a wire flies through her, winding around her muscles and her bones, tightening all of the intricate pieces of _That Vega Girl_ back into place.

"Waffles are going to be – I don't know. Take your drinks and this." Darren barks, snatching a table number from the counter and jabbing it at Robbie.

It feels like his throat is about to collapse in on itself, so Robbie doesn't say anything in reply. All he does is scoop up the steel ornament by its stem. Robbie's reaching out to claim the two steaming drinks that remain on the counter when –

"I'll get them." A voice to his left announces, surging from nowhere. Robbie's head immediately swings away from the morose barista in front of him, to the girl to his left. Her lips are all curled up, fighting desperately to remain upright. Apprehensively, Robbie nods and takes it for what it is – a gesture of goodwill.

It's still busy at Jet Brew Coffee, exceedingly so. Briefly, Robbie thinks Tori and himself are going to be forced into setting up camp beside the counter alongside the other dozen or so marooned patrons. Fortunately enough though, for once, possibly for the first time ever, it's at this moment that fate takes mercy on Robbie Shapiro. Sort of, if he ignores the pain.

Tori cocks her elbow and lightly digs it into Robbie's rib, nodding toward the edge of the restaurant. A booth, quite possibly the last booth for some time, has just been vacated. Stuttering into motion, Robbie sets off to claim it before another of the lost souls beside them has the chance.

Seven loping strides guide Robbie to the rare and unoccupied booth Tori had spotted. The eight stride, because fate or the universe has remembered it hates him, guides his knee directly into the table splitting the booth. Howling in abject misery, Robbie doubles over and cradles his surely bruising limb.

"So graceful." Tori smirks, dropping easily into the space beside him.

Chivalrously, well as chivalrously as such an inconsequential gesture could expect to be, Robbie shuffles toward the wall to avoid crowding her. The reaction that emanates from Tori immediately afterwards knocks Robbie into total disarray. Her head jerks forward and Tori exhales hard through her nose, a look of exasperation cutting through her expression. Her hand shoves itself against Robbie's, fingers invading the spaces between his. Once they're interlocked, Tori's lips flicker upward, triumph making itself known in her expression.

Tori doesn't gloat after that, content to let silence settle over them. She sips demurely at her drink while Robbie takes jittery, sporadic skulls of his coffee. It's not the moment that's making him tense, or even the way people across the room keep peering over at them, really. Mostly he's a tangled web of nerves because with the way Tori's hip is angled, her thigh is resting firmly against his. Robbie's been intimate with girls a few times actually, but those times they'd been under the beautiful numbing haze of alcohol. Right now, he doesn't think he's ever felt more exposed.

"Uh, are you okay? You're not Vegan these days or a-anything are you? You're like – sort of quiet." Tori jumps with the question, briefly looking startled before peering at Robbie and scrubbing every trace of surprise from her face. She's distant after that, retracting her hand and floating into a part of her mind that Robbie guesses is eons away from the waking world.

"What? No. _God no_." Tori replies belatedly, rocking her head back and forth for emphasis. "I just haven't uh, ordered Monday waffles in a long time. Probably since…yeah." She adds, dragging her shoulders up and down as she trails off. Robbie guesses Tori means the shrug to appear casual, but her joints are rusty. The movement jerks awkwardly in and out of existence.

"Sorry."

The word rages against Robbie's lips, slicing them on its way through. His limbs are like concrete as he hauls them up; the table is cold as his elbows touch down on it. Propping his chin in his palms, Robbie's tries to just stare ahead. Naturally then, he finds that his eyes crawl in Tori's direction. He regards her with dread, but like a car accident, he can't pull his eyes away. Those gold flecks in her eyes, this time they strike him like shrapnel. They dig into his chest and it hurts to breathe. It's silent again after that, stifling and oppressive this time. Tori doesn't say anything, eyes falling into her mug. Robbie finds his mind stumbling toward the disconcerting conclusion that this morning may have been a mistake.

Time passes by, enough for both tables either side of their booth to empty and then refill. Robbie remains hunched over the table, nails beginning to dig into his cheeks. He feels sick, the waffles that are apparently en route will probably end up sprayed against the inside of his toilet bowl.

There's a flicker of movement and then bronze is seeping into Robbie's vision. Tori leans in close, fingers tightening around his forearm. Robbie sits up a little, mostly out of alarm. That's when Tori slinks into action. She hooks her arm, well, mostly her hand, around Robbie's forearm and drags his hand into her lap. Astonished, he mostly just stares at Tori as she worms her fingers between his.

This time when Robbie peers over at Tori, there's no stabbing in his chest. He doesn't come away cracked and bleeding. The drops of gold swirling around in her iris' have softened, no longer cutting, but shimmering in that way Robbie's missed for years. Involuntarily, he clutches Tori's hand tighter. He's a little afraid she's going to ditch him, but mostly he's just trying to keep hold of the moment.

"I know, I know." Even with the tenderness in her eyes and her delicate grip on Robbie's hand, Tori finds a way to carve her voice into something cold and distant. They both remember the party. They both remember _that _night at Sigma Epsilon Xi. _I don't__hold hands__with guys_, Tori had said under the moonlight, unaffected as the words had lifted away from her lips and barrelled into Robbie.

Things change though. Sunlight pours through the window beside Tori and lights up her bones, illuminating her perfect features in a way all of the fluorescent lighting in the world could never do. There's no cloak of darkness to shelter under, and the shadows aren't black enough to hide the conflict in her eyes. "I said I wouldn't, but…you're the exception. _Shapiro_."

Robbie nods along with her, shaking loose a laugh at the way she emphasizes his name. It's mostly out of spite for being called on it, but Robbie thinks there is affection somewhere as well. It's important, Robbie tells himself. It's more than he's seen reflected in Tori's voice whenever she's addressing somebody else. Robbie begins to twist his spine, muscles creaking and turning him towards Tori. He's close, too close to turn back. Taking a deep breath, Robbie begins to lean forward and -

"Waffles."

The voice arrives with all the conviction of a sloth running a marathon, but it still manages to strike Robbie like a bullet. He jolts backwards, shoulders crashing against the back of his seat. Trembling slightly from all of the adrenaline that's flooded his veins to the point of bursting, Robbie viciously plunges his hand into his pocket. With his eyes narrowed in annoyance, Robbie pushes the spare change he's dredged up across the table. Dour as ever, Darren bends at the waist and collects his meagre tip, departing without hurling any further barbs at Robbie.

For once in his life, Robbie follows that lead. He doesn't say anything, he doesn't babble incoherently or spill out an intricately detailed schematic of how he'd planned to kiss Tori. He just bundles it all up and drowns the resulting bundle someplace deep enough to have never seen the sun. He doesn't think how he'd actually been leaning into kiss Tori, like for real, no net. He just reaches out and tugs a plate of waffles closer.

"You know, I think the service here might actually be worse than at The Grub Truck." Tori notes a few moments later, eyes flickering between Robbie and the slither of waffle skewed on her fork.

Robbie stares at her, a blank expression smoothing his face. He'd been so close to Tori's lips that he swears he could taste them. Right now though, Tori's just bringing up The Grub Truck like nothing's happened. She's casually eating her waffles, blissfully unaware that the total weirdo beside her wasn't just about to -

"Also, I know what you were going to do." Her words are the casual flutter of a butterfly's wings. Innocuous at first glance, but eventually kicking distant winds into hurricanes. Robbie finds himself caught in a gale, spluttering as Tori lifts another mouthful of food to her lips.

More coughs claw their way up Robbie's throat, broken and shattered from being rattled around in his throat. When his airway clears, Robbie unclenches his eyes, flicking them in Tori's direction. Her gaze is fixed on him now; the expression that's crept onto her face is almost helpless.

Jerking his arm off the table and back to his side; Robbie drums his fingers against the seat. Sucking in a long breath, so long he thinks his lungs might burst; Robbie opens his mouth. "I um. I'm sorry! It's just that there's the sun, and _you_, and everything was going very well -"

"Robbie, I'm not mad." Tori's gentle voice somehow bludgeons all of his excuses into silence. Robbie's jaw swings open, it's enough for Tori's lips to curve. A wisp of laughter slinks through her lips and Robbie feels a shiver rush up his spine.

_She's not mad_.

* * *

**Leave me reviews if you want the next part. They're like fuel :D**


	6. Walk Away

"_Do you feel the chill clawing at the back of your neck?_

_I start to spill_

_Did you really think that you could fix me?"_

* * *

She's not mad, but by no means is Robbie sweeping Tori off her feet. By no means are things _easy_. He still finds a way to stutter through the easiest of sentences, almost to the point of self parody. Once she's finished her waffles, Tori drops her elbows onto the table and tents her fingers. She rests her cheekbone against her knuckles, gaze hovering around Robbie.

Maybe it's the way the sunlight is hitting her, or maybe it's because the awe of just seeing her is wearing off. It's then that Robbie _really_ looks at Tori. He doesn't just fixate on the gold in her eyes, or consider the meaning hiding behind her expression. He doesn't lament all of the ways Tori's changed. He just notices the way her eyes are rimmed with way too much black for it to be mascara alone. He notices that she's slightly too gaunt, cheekbones protruding slightly too far. He notices the way her eyes chase the sound of her name as it's tossed around the tables surrounding them. He irrevocably concludes that cynical as she might be, as disaffected and so cool as she is, Tori isn't okay.

"What's wrong?" The question is unnecessary, cluttering the air alongside an answer that's already hanging over them.

"People."

Tori's answer comes through her lips sudden and violent. A scowl distorting her features as she surveys the room. She pauses on a group of girls, freshman from the looks of it, sizing them up as a threat. Robbie lifts his mug to his lips and takes a sip. His drink is cold now, they're been here for a while, he realizes.

"It's like, I don't really care what they're saying, mostly. But today is, _fuck_. I don't know, this is – I like having breakfast with you and they're ruining it." A muscle in Tori's jaw twitches as she speaks. Frustration makes her words creak and swell, causing them to bump against one another unsteadily.

Silent again, Tori's eyes slide back to Robbie. Her hands pool in her lap, thin fingers plucking a stray crumb from her jeans. Robbie's heart is quick to beat faster. He can feel it beating insistently against his ribs. He swallows hard, veins full of gasoline, Robbie attempts to conjure something amusing into existence.

"Things are just – they're so wonky, Tori!" Robbie exclaims, words darting from his lips with a velocity that betrays the nervousness coursing through him. He doesn't mean for Tori to pick up on that, though. He just wants her to laugh.

"I mean really, you're sitting here, eating with me, Tori. We've held hands! You're experiencing PG-13 love the Robbie Shapiro way." Robbie finds himself sounding a little too much like Rex with that last sentence. He finds himself feeling a little too desperate, reaching for a laugh like his high school self. Tori's laughter stutters into the air, but it's forced. He's heard enough people attempt to spare his ego to weed out the nuances.

Robbie's never really been funny when it counted.

"PG-13 doesn't sound so bad." Tori's voice is almost silent with that admission; barely a blip against the static around them. Her lips twitch again after that, but the thought never leaps from her tongue. Robbie gets the impression it's still there, teetering on the inside of her lips. Tori's a little bit like him, he realizes, too fearful to push whatever it is into the open. She's –

"I'm not her."

"Whu-what?" Robbie hasn't even been particularly eloquent. That word, a loose definition of the sound that's clattered through his lips, is indecipherable, even by his standards.

Tori lets out a long breath, limbs drawn tight to her body. "It's not bad or anything, but – I think you have this thing where you expect me to still be the girl you went to Prome with." Tori's hands twitch and clench with the admission, agitated as if her body has grown used to letting insecurities like this one fester.

Robbie sighs, this topic, the one of Prome, is one of many that he's dreaded rising from the grave. Readjusting his glasses on his nose, Robbie just barrels on. "Prome was – you _do_ remember we only went together because I got stood up and you'd been too busy organising everything, right?"

The question hangs in the air, Robbie's voice had come out sharper than he'd meant. It's not that he's still upset about Prome or anything of the things that happened. It's more that, even years afterwards and especially in Tori's company, the night remains a raw wound. An infection that's lingered. It's taken root and become a part of him.

"I'm sort of glad you got stood up." Tori announces, lips all twisted up in this sick, sad little smile. The upturned edges of her lips are hooks, dragging Robbie in. Without even realising it, his breathing hitches as Tori considers her next words. "I'm not – It sucked seeing you so miserable, but Prome was. I don't know. Amazing in a fucked up, Hollywood Arts kind of way, I guess."

Perfect. The word tugs at the hooks in Tori's lips. She smiles a little wider, but it comes with a grimace. Robbie just swallows the bait, choking on the memory. To this point he'd thrown the events of that night in a box, wrapped it in iron and sunk it in the ocean. Since Tori came back into his life, or he came back into hers, Robbie has heard the beating of metal beneath the waves. Now though, Tori's silence is the sound of that box, the sins of the past, washing up on a shoreline somewhere. It's only a matter of time before somebody pulls those rusty old chains apart and Robbie's left to explain why things are so fucked up. He doesn't think Tori's ready for a tsunami.

"Yeah." He's not so much agreeing with Tori as he is saying something just to break the silence.

Tori's eyes lower to her lap with that, hands flittering restlessly. When she looks up again, it's through her lashes. They're thick and dark, the perfect cover as she speaks. "Do you regret it – going to Prome together?"

Robbie pushes out a loud exhale. He's thought about this moment a thousand times, maybe more. It surfaced most every time he's left alone with his memories of high school. "I regret kissing – I regret Cat see us kiss _after _Prome." Robbie says bluntly, lips daring to crease with a self deprecating smile. He glances over at Tori, like she's going to confirm what a horrible mistake that had been.

"I regret Cat throwing me into the pool at the after party." Tori's voice comes through her lips strangled, crushed by her own throat. Robbie winces with the memory of Cat's usually docile nature twisting into something terrible. Her rust coloured hair had been splayed across her face and her thin shoulders had trembled with rage. She'd been, in a word, terrifying.

Words are crawling up Robbie's throat when Tori cuts in, gently placing her hand over his. "The hiding was – it was kind of shitty, but honestly, I don't regret it. You got me a blanket and a hot chocolate afterwards. It was, honestly. I meant it when I said Prome was kind of amazing. That was you, Rob." She says, rolling her shoulders in that way Robbie's come to expect will coincide with emotional confessions of any kind.

Robbie hadn't been expecting that. The very intimate way that her hand has crawled over his, the way she's fondly – well, maybe fondly – reminiscing over _him_. It's all very unexpected, but the warm feeling seeping into his chest mostly drowns out the shock of it all.

"You make me smile."

Robbie's hands aren't fast enough to cram the sentence back into his mouth. Tori's lips flicker uncertainly for a moment, eventually settling into a soft smile. Robbie could reel off a dozen reasons she could be smiling because of his complete lack of social co-ordination, but somehow he doesn't need to. When it comes to articulating feelings, he's uncommonly horrible at it. This time though, he thinks maybe he's actually tripped over the right thing to say.

"Cheesy." Tori eventually decides, wrinkling her nose in mild dissatisfaction. It's an entirely feeble attempt at bitterness, and _man _does that make Robbie feel amazing. When she'd been all dressed in black and the moonlight had drained the colour from her face, Tori had been nothing but cynicism and sharp edges. Now though, he thinks maybe he can get closer to her without the threat of being torn to ribbons.

They abandon the Coffee Shop not long after that. It's not bitterly cold exactly, but even with his windbreaker on, there's a chill in the air. The wind weaves it's way around Robbie, biting at his knuckles. Rubbing his palms together, Robbie glances sidelong at Tori. Her tiny sweater, the one exposing a sliver of her bronzed midriff isn't exactly waging much of a war against the elements.

"Hey Tori," Pulling his hands through the sleeves, Robbie's free of his jacket before Tori's jaw can swing open in protest.

As Robbie closes in on her, jacket in hand, there's a look akin to a startled deer on Tori's face. He slings the article of clothing over her shoulder, and she stares up at him, eyes impossibly big. Robbie's usual reaction to such prolonged eye contact is to splutter and struggle or air – to fall apart, really. Just this once though, he holds it together, offering Tori a soft smile and stuffing his hands into his pockets with a shrug. Still watching him, Tori reaches up with one hand and absently runs her fingers over the collar. Her eyebrows are crowding above her nose as if she doesn't quite know how to deal with the situation.

"Today was – it wasn't like, _easy_ or anything. But uh, I – I enjoyed it. Having breakfast with you was…nice. Also, the jacket…Thanks." Tori's uncertain with her response, sentences running together and bleeding out all at once. With the last word, Tori's lips melt into a smile and she brushes her palm over Robbie's forearm.

"S'ok." Robbie overcompensates for his lack of eloquence with a booming reply. Tori blinks with a start, hand hovering uncertainly between them, but then a grin blooms on her lips.

Robbie's seen Tori laugh so many times, but the many different nuances in the way she does it never cease to catch him off guard. Lately it's been stained dark with bitterness, and Robbie's almost gotten used to it. For this one moment though, she's unrestrained in her happiness. The hard lines in her face have softened, and swimming in his baggy clothing, Tori is at peace.

"I've missed this." Tori says, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth with the assessment. Robbie's mouth quivered feebly with that, he's stunned and she's quite literally stolen the words from his tongue. He's still reeling from that when Tori does that thing, the one where she flips her hair, and then his breath is gone too.

"I've uh, yeah." Robbie nods along as his tongue spasms feebly in its efforts to release a sound of agreement.

Tori doesn't laugh this time, but her lips surge upwards with great amusement. The hairs on the back of Robbie's neck prickle, popping with static as Tori takes a step toward him. It's at that moment a block of light drops across Tori's face, shimmering across her lips and illuminating Tori's eyes in such a way that Robbie thinks he can see stars between them. He can see all the good things left fighting for air inside of her, and he forget about all of the ways she's broken. He's all caught up in that, maybe drowning in the stardust, when Tori's hand snaps to his, delicate fingers wrapping around his calloused ones. Robbie's peering down at their linked hands, eyebrows screwed in confusion, when he feels Tori's breath rustle up against his skin.

"Uh, Rob. You aren't so good with body language, are you?" Tori asks, a mocking lilt infiltrating her tone. Still staring at their hands, Robbie shakes his head, self-conscious as fire ignites along his cheeks. He's blushing, haemorrhaging clichés as he forces his eyes towards Tori's. Her eyes are melting just like they used to. The distance between them, both physical and in the way she'd look at him, has all but vanished.

"Sorry." Robbie coughs up another apology, and scuffs the ground distractedly. "It's been awhile since – um. I'm not used to pretty girls talking to me – touching me, also." His voice leaves his lips all crushed up and pathetic. Clenching his eyes shut, Robbie begins to retract his hand from Tori's.

"So, you think I'm pretty?" Tori's fingers clamp down on Robbie's, trapping them in place. When he opens his eyes she's cocking an eyebrow, lips configured into a smirk. She's leaning even closer than before and Robbie feels his heart leap into his throat. The stale smell of her morning smoke hangs to her hair, but Tori's eyes are so, _so_ bright. Inevitably, Robbie's next breath leaves his lungs ragged and dishevelled.

"You're – I think you're – Tori, you're the most beautiful person I know. I don't mean your legs or your body – this sounds so lame – but I mean all of you. Personality included." Robbie wrestled with his words, eventually pinning them down and corralling them into something resembling coherent sentences.

The veneer of confidence in Tori's posture crumbles in a fairly spectacular way. "Uh. Yeah – wow." She says softly, suddenly contemplative.

A long moment passes before Tori drags in a shallow, quivering breath. Surreptitiously, she glances from her left to her right, lips thinning out as she searches for signs of life. Tori's pleading for a way out, but she won't relinquish her grip on his hand.

Cautiously, Robbie begins to speak again. "I'm uh -"

He makes it maybe two words into his explanation before Tori's fingers are curling around his collar and drag him forwards. It's totally at odds with the way she's grabbed him, but when Tori's lips press against his, Robbie thinks it's the softest thing he's ever felt. She's no longer trying to rip a one night stand out of him, or kill the memories of high school. She's just – she's just _kissing_ him.

Robbie's heart kicks wildly when Tori pulls back to breathe. Her eyelids slowly flicker back, and far from the tightly spun ball of nerves she's been all morning, Robbie thinks maybe she actually looks at peace. Arms hang limply against his hips. Robbie just tries not to ruin the moment. He could stay this way forever.

He could, but she won't.

Tori takes a long step backwards, fingers entwining and fidgeting nervously. Staring over Robbie's shoulder, she quietly proceeds to not only ruin the moment, but to set it ablaze. "That was – uh. I'm going to go."

A sickly, sad little smile, one that's more of a frown then anything, infects Tori's lips. There's a cloud of laughter somewhere in the distance. Fate's cat call, no doubt. Tori's hand dives into the space between Robbie's jacket and her hoody. When it emerges again, her fingers are loosely gripping the dark glasses Robbie's come to hate. A moment or so passes before she places them over her eyes. After that, the sun dims and the distant buzz of the campus turns to static. Robbie just watches as Tori flicks her wrist with a little wave and shrinks into the horizon.

If he weren't such a coward, he'd tell her not to go.

But he is. He's gutless.

* * *

**Well that was kind of a bummer, all that wait and then a down like that. Trust me, I've got the next couple of chapters partially written, the wait for another won't be long at all. Thanks for all the reviews, favorites, etc too guys. They're much appreciated. :)**


	7. Bottle of Mass Destruction

The fragile, the broken  
Sit in circles and stay unspoken  
We are powerless...

* * *

The rest of the week is a blur.

It's not that Robbie's excited or that he's_ so_ busy juggling his social life and school work. He often finds hours bleeding into one another, while conversely the days seem to stretch on forever. When you're strained to the point of breaking, time mostly loses its meaning. Burying his face into another book, Robbie just hides the world away behind slabs of information and dusty pages. He occupies his fingers with endless words, typing out essays that aren't even due until the end of the semester. In that little world of clicking keyboards and the dim light of his study lamp, Robbie almost forgets about _her_. Almost.

Sometime between the thirty-eighth and thirty-ninth paragraphs of Robbie's essay on Surrealism in Modern Television the door to his dorm swings open. The sounds of the hallway briefly spill into the room, but the door shuts with a dull click shortly after.

"This is not healthy, man. Not at all." Aiden drawls, footsteps padding across the room as he observes the state of Robbie's desk. It's a graveyard of crumpled paper and half-eaten microwave food. Robbie spins in his seat, mutely observing Aiden as he arduously disconnects their smoke alarm. Exhaling loudly, he's suddenly overcome by the irony of somebody who's about to fill their lungs with smoke lecturing him on the dangers of _studying_.

"It's healthy for my grade point average." Robbie snaps, temper fraying all of a sudden. Exhaling loudly and turning away from his laptop, Robbie buries his face in his hands. The worst part of his unnecessarily violent outburst is that it had pushed its way through his lips, recently becoming the most natural thing in the world. Over the past few days, Robbie's found his words have been uncharacteristically vicious if he's not especially paying attention to what he says.

"Yeah, you see. _That_." Aiden says, nodding in Robbie's direction. "You have to get over this whole…Vega thing. You're like, _poisoning_ the room. Come out tonight, loosen up." The usual air of aloofness clings to Aiden with that statement, but it's shaky, almost as if he's clinging to it like a security blanket. Hidden somewhere in the recesses of his eyes is real actual concern.

_Fuck._

It's that empathy, the way it's so human, that brings Robbie out of the void he'd been sheltering in. Reality seeps in. All of a sudden the world isn't just facts or prose, notes and chords. The sun is filtering through the windows, and Robbie's painfully aware that there's another plane of existence outside of the four walls surrounding him. Every thought and memory that he'd carefully packaged up and stowed away begin to unravel. Free of their bonds, Robbie's inundated with memories of Tori's smile, of her laugh. He's plagued with the fading taste of her lips.

Clenching his eyes in a vague attempt to block it all out, Robbie throws his arm out and shuts the laptop. It's a white flag, the end of his battle to block everything out with something constructive. Lowering his head, Robbie turns to Aiden broadcasts the terms of his surrender. "I need to get out of here."

When Robbie looks up, there's a flash of white and Aiden is regarding him with a wolfish grin. It's then that Robbie realizes that _here_ is an abstract concept when placed in the hands of his roommate. It's a word that could either refer to a place or a state of mind. In the past it's been something Robbie's regarded with a sickly mixture of terror and anticipation. Right now though, he can barely summon a quickening of his heartbeat. _Here_ is a place that Robbie finds his mind playing memories of Monday on a loop. If Aiden's leading the way to anywhere else, Robbie knows he'll follow.

Aiden drops a beaten up tine case into Robbie's palms.

Robbie knows hell follows.

* * *

It might be six hours later, or it could be nine.

He'd lost track of time days ago. Right now he can't even tell what direction he's stumbling in. If things had been a blur in the afternoon, they're a chaotic meshing of colours and shapes now, more akin to a cubism painting than real life. It's okay though. Robbie still has his keys. He's connected to the clouds right now, and there's amber flooding his veins. It's okay really. He'll fix the wall that his knuckles smashed through when he gets back to earth.

Robbie's feet eventually carry him to a bean bag that's sitting just below the moon. He sinks into it, momentarily clawing at the debris on either side of it with the fear he's being swallowed. That paranoia soon passes when more clouds roll in. The room's tinted green and Robbie smiles back at it. Somebody passes a blunt into his hands and then Robbie's filling his lungs with smoke. When it blows past his lips he's laughing. It's a loud, barking laugh. With his head swimming in THC like this he'll laugh at nothing. When the pool runs dry, he'll probably cry at everything though. That moment of clarity passes, and he's laughing again. Life is so hilarious when reality is blunted. He's so clever when his thoughts are clouded and sit just out of reach.

There's another fracture in time. The next thing Robbie knows, two voices are crashing like waves over his ocean of tranquillity. He recognizes them both, but he isn't able to place them until his eyelids flitter open. There's a great big blank space in front of him. He's sitting on the porch now, which is new. The stars are awfully pretty, and so is Tori. Her hair is – wow it's all chestnut and not stained a depressing shade of coffee. Robbie grins again, until Tori's eyebrows crash down over her nose and –

Wait, Tori? She hadn't been there when he'd shut his eyes.

"Oh god, _Robbie_?" Her eyebrows have come down heavily over her eyes and she – Robbie thinks he might have upset her, which is bad. Gripping the railing beside himself, Robbie attempts to claw his way upright. You know, because he's a gentleman and a scholar.

"Heey, you there…guy." Robbie eventually greets back, upright for all of a moment before his impossibly heavy bones drag him back down to the ground. His dismount from a standing position is only slightly less graceful than his initial attempt at standing. Tori's frown deepens, and her eyebrows furrow even closer if that's possible. The lazy smile that's been settled so comfortably on Robbie's lips since he stopped working on his essay smashes against the ground. He immediately feels a surge of guilt about his balance related inadequacies. Robbie's working on peeling an apology from his tongue when -

"What is wrong with him, what did you do?" Tori hisses, flying upright and descending upon – oh hey, it's Aiden! – with a vicious line of questioning. She's all razor-sharp edges and the words she's slinging at him are bubbling with anger.

"Me? What did I do to him?" Aiden demands indignantly, eyebrows shoot to the top of his forehead.

"Did I stutter?" Tori sneers, eyes narrowing to dangerous slits. There's a slither of white between Tori's lips. She's snarling with the malice of a wild animal. Robbie feels a twinge of panic rush up his spine, chasing the fog away.

"Fine, Vega. You want to know why Old 'Berto here has annihilated at least half a grade point worth of brain cells, tonight?"There's a slur in Aiden's words, but also grim triumph. _No, she really doesn't need to know._ Immobilised as he might be, Robbie broadcasts a desperate look in his roommate's direction. Well that's the intention at least. There's also a fairly strong possibility that he just lays crumpled against the steps, mouth ajar.

It turns out Robbie has just laid there like roadkill. Aiden barrels on.

"Our 'Berto here is having a meltdown and making _me_ act responsibly right now – which I hate - because you haven't called him. This week, I've - do you have any idea how many times he's told me about a feeling that he's having?" Aiden explains, jabbing a finger in Robbie's direction. In spite of his irritation and the sparks of malice popping in his voice, he still looks more worried than anything. Robbie almost feels like he's left his body behind, and is watching a play or a television show of some sort. Real life isn't this interesting.

"I – uh, what?" Tori's expression softens and she cocks her head slightly. Everything is flickering and going black, but between the darkness Robbie catches Tori's eyes flash over to him for a moment.

"He's going out of his mind because apparently _you're_ supposed to call him." Robbie's staring at the backs of his eyelids when Aiden says this. Maybe it's a good thing too. If he just lets himself sink into the nothingness this darkness offers, he can fool himself into believing the _him_ Aiden is talking about refers to somebody else.

There's a pause. Darkness and peace intermingle for a moment, blurring to the point where Robbie's not sure where one ends and the other begins. In the end though, that's not entirely important. Tori's voice, a blinding light severs his connection with both of them.

"I was – what about the three day rule? You wait three days to avoid seeming desperate, you - everybody knows about the three day rule." He opens his eyes just in time to register a bleary vision of Tori's confusion. Her bottom lip juts out, just on the cusp of a pout, and her eyebrows screw together in confusion. She's lost the sharp edges that had briefly given her the upper hand over Aiden. She's no longer attempting to verbally eviscerate him and for some reason that's comforting. Robbie closes his eyes again.

"Does it _look _like he knows about the three day rule?"

There's a break after that, neither Tori or Aiden say a word. Maybe they're sizing each other up. Robbie doesn't open his eyes this time. He's too far gone. Set adrift on a sea of tranquillity and opiates by the three day rule. The dull thud of bass in the distance is akin to the roar of waves. He's a million miles away from the static of a dead conversation.

"Vega." Electricity pops in the air when Aiden says Tori's name – Robbie's drifting but the questioning tone in Aiden's voice rips him back into awareness. "He likes you, you know. Like, a lot. If you're just looking for a place to crash when nobody else wants you, just – just leave him alone, okay? Don't like…talk about the three day rule like it's some real thing." The statement comes from far away, miles maybe. Even still, Robbie's caught off guard by just how lucid it sounds.

"Uh." It's supposed to be the jumping point to something more meaningful, but Tori falters, stalling on whatever it had been that she'd meant to say. Instead, Robbie hears the sound of gravel crunching under foot. It might be Aiden pacing, or it could be a freshman stumbling home. Robbie is overcome with the urge to sit upright and inspect for himself, but it's as if his muscles have atrophied, and his bones have liquefied. He can't even lift his eyelids. Maybe he's asleep and dreaming in soundscapes.

"You're like, you're actually – _actually_ and for _Robbie_?" It's a vague sort of a word, but in the midst of Aiden's incoherence, it takes on a whole new meaning. Robbie's still stuck staring at his eyelids, a sort of waking death he concludes, but the implication is clear even in the foggy corridors of his mind. Tori's feelings, maybe he _hasn't _been imagining them.

"Yeah, I'm _actually_." Tori says after a swollen moment, substituting the same vague word into her reply.

Those words are the defibrillators that bring Robbie back to life. His eyes fly open and he pushes himself onto his elbows. Not because it's a declaration or love, or anything like that, but because it's a maddeningly indistinct sentence. Between the loosely defined term being tossed between Aiden and Tori, the demon inside of Robbie's skull can see a thousand cracks and shadows to conjure into nightmares. The whole thing sounds incredibly meaningful. Meaningful, but Robbie's not sure how. Everything in his life, all of the rejections leading to this point, have conditioned him to believe something meaningful couldn't possibly be directed at _him_.

"You're actually what?" He blurts out, beginning the arduous process of scraping himself off the stairs and lurching into the conversation. The words hang heavily in the air, and Robbie slings his gaze between Tori and Aiden. Shock has carved itself into their expressions, and Robbie thinks they'd deemed him unconscious at some point in the near past. He's a corpse risen from the dead and demanding answers.

"I'm actually," Tori speaks slowly, approaching the subject as if it's fragile, which immediately has Robbie on his haunches. "I think – actually, I know – that I um. I like you."

"I like you." Tori repeats. It's more confident this time, but he doesn't think either of them can quite believe it yet. It's a teetering kind of term, one that could just as easily fall off the rails as carry them to nirvana. Even still, for that one moment Robbie feels important. He feels like he's from royalty, or maybe just old money. He feels important and not like he's just some loser. For that one moment he's not a kid that's smoked too much from his roommate's stash or drained one too many glasses at a party he never really wanted to attend. He's fucking important.

"I like you too, like actually." His words are too encumbered with emotion to sound effortless and funny like he wants. Even still, Tori's eyes spark and her lips shift into a watery smile that's half joyous, and half pitying.

Robbie's cruel mind keeps his thoughts corralled just out of reach, but he manages to snatch hold of just one. The thread, it's one that tells him Tori's expression is one of guilt. She's so ingrained with feeling nothing that _she_ feels bad for _him_. To Tori, he's an unfortunate fly that's stumbled into one of the crooked webs around her heart. She's a twisted being, stuck in her ways and doomed to consume him. The fact that she looks at herself as twisted wreckage finds herself so ugly, so damaged is inconceivable. As much as he'd like to wash that expression from Tori's features, Robbie's weary of the words welling up in his throat. He bites down on his tongue and stifles them. He holds them at bay for long enough that Aiden pipes up again.

"I think I'm going to throw up." Aiden says, a sardonic smile painted on his lips. Robbie bends at the waist, and unhealthy roar emanating from the pit of his stomach. He doesn't think it's laughter that's careening up his throat.

"I think -"

Tori's retort dies when Robbie doubles over. A sickly splatter of all that's removed him from the harshness of reality douses the concrete below him. Tori jolts backwards, retreating toward the horizon like a shock of lightening. A groan stumbles through Robbie's lips. He lays back, resting his head on the top stair. He stares up at the roof of the porch. It's a dull tone, the type that could coat any house in America. Oddly, it's the most coherent thought he'd been able to conjure since the sun fell out of the sky. It's probably something to do with the acidic puddle below him.

He blinks.

When the world comes into view again, Robbie finds that he's been propped up against the railing to one side of the stairs. There's a dull ache in his shoulder, and he wonders how much time has slipped through his fingers. Sharp sounds of disagreement tug Robbie's line of vision over to the pavement to his left. Tori's thin arms are slicing through the air and she's all steely resolve with the way her feet are rooted to the ground. Her lips are moving, but the words are hushed vowels and Robbie can't quite make out what she's saying.

"Fine." Aiden says, a frown deeply imbedded into his lips, stark and out of context piece of information. It's the only part of their conversation that makes its way over to Robbie. Removed as he is from the proceedings, Robbie's all too aware of the gleam sparking to life in Tori's eyes as she strides toward him.

"I'm taking you -" Tori's eyes are all golden sparkles and glee before she catches herself. With the practiced grace of an older woman, she catches the emotion and bottles it. With a final surreptitious glance back at Aiden's look of twisted disbelief, Tori's numb again "I'm walking you back to your dorm." She concludes, very deliberately.

It's the sight of Tori hovering over him that kickstarts Robbie's lethargic brain into action. Her image is a match, setting the alcohol swimming inside of Robbie's head ablaze. Thoughts and memories, most of them centring on the girl before him, spark to life. He wants to know how it is she's stumbled across him tonight. He wants to ask why he's important enough to expend all of this energy on now when she hadn't called before. More than anything, he just wants her to relent. Tori's expression, the thousand yard stare that's haunted his dreams, he knows is forced. He knows this because her hand is hovering between them. It's a fairly trivial detail, but Robbie knows the offer to help him upright wouldn't be there if she were truly as unaffected by him as her expression suggests.

"Let's go then." Robbie states, words slurring together thanks to the loose grip he's got on his tongue. Cobbling together his limbs, Robbie clasps Tori's hand and laboriously pulls himself upright. It's easier this time, but his legs are still ungamely, barely holding him upright.

Nodding, Tori corrals Robbie's arm and guides him along the path leading onto the street. It's then that they split from Aiden, a tense goodbye on Tori's part, an amiable wave from Robbie. Blocks of light from the apartments overlooking the street illuminate the way home after that. Robbie's unreliable legs threaten to carry him straight into traffic on more than one occasion, but Tori tethers herself to him. She also speaks at a mile a minute. All the shadows can do is attempt to keep up. Tori mostly talks about how things are, that for the first time in a long while, she feels like they're getting better. Robbie mostly just nods along, distrustful of his mouths ability to follow the instructions of his mind.

Some time later, Tori eases to a halt. Robbie swings his head around, taking in their surroundings. There's a familiar bike rack nestled beneath a crooked notice board and a scattering of garbage bins not too far away from that. Blinking with a start, Robbie scrubs his eyes; closing in on the realisation that Tori's remembered exactly where it is that he lives. Robbie shouldn't be so startled. It is though. That piece of information, it's more to blame for the way Robbie sways dangerously towards a line of shrubbery than the alcohol or the drugs.

Dumbfounded, Robbie sort of just stares into the night for a few minutes. It's Tori's elbow careening into his ribs that brings Robbie back into the present. Robotically, he stuffs his hand into his pocket, fishing around for the flat surface of his key card or the jagged edges of his dorm keys. Ideally both. It's a long struggle, and as Robbie's eyes flicker repeatedly to Tori, it's akin to a one hundred year war. Eventually though, he's dragging his key card free. It's enough to enatic a ceasefire. He'll go back into battle for his keys later. As Robbie's basking in the spoils of war, Tori claps for him. The irony in her actions his readily apparent, but that's okay. She's smiling, eyes not fixed on some point a thousand yards away. She's looking at Robbie, grinning like abandoning a party for him wasn't a mistake. He still wants to know where she's been, but doesn't ask. There are vague notions of a three day rule floating around in his head. For now, that's enough.

* * *

Frankly, the rest of the night is an embarrassment. Robbie sets up camp at the base of a toilet and Tori's left to sit on the cold porcelain beside him. She rubs his back and supplies him with a fairly impressive lecture on the dangers of alcohol poisoning. Well it seems impressive at the time at least. Robbie's thoughts are only just beginning to smooth into a linear narrative again, so he's not entirely sure.

Some time later, when the sun is just beginning to contemplate its daily rise, Robbie's starting to feel like something resembling human again. He'd posted at the end of his bed, held up by the wall behind himself. Tori's splayed out across the rest of the bed, chest gently rising and falling in her slumber. They'd been watching late night television in an oddly domestic end to the evening when Tori had fallen asleep. Tempted as he'd been to join her, Robbie found himself trying to piece his night back together.

The pieces are jagged, not quite fitting together in some cases, missing altogether in others. He's still working on how exactly he ended up on the porch when Tori's arm swings out and lands on his hip bone. It's at that particular moment that Robbie's heart leaps from his chest to his throat. His eyes snap from the television to Tori. Her eyes are still shut, and she looks so peaceful with her fingers knotted up in the sheets. Robbie resigns himself to sitting still so she's undisturbed. The one thing he does do is wipe away a wisp of hair that's resting on Tori's cheek.

Yeah, he's an idiot.

The serenity of the room is shattered in the time that it takes for Tori to fly upright and swing at Robbie's head. Her knuckles collide in a fairly horrific manner with Robbie's nose. He can already feel blood trickling out of it by the time Tori's pulling her arm back.

"Oh god! Oh – Robbie. I'm so sorry!" She shrieks, veering into consciousness and descending over him with vicious sympathy. Robbie's oddly reminded of the first time they'd had a class together. Tori had spilt coffee all over Beck and fretted over him in much the same way. By the time that memory is flickering before Robbie's eyes, Tori's is throwing a leg over him and dropping into his lap. She's already staked a claim to a white shirt from the floor and before Robbie can utter a word, the garment is pinched over his nose.

The situation is ridiculous, but it's so _them_. Robbie's always thought that they were destined for something other than brooding moments obscured by shadows. He's always thought that Tori and himself were meant for sitcom ridiculousness in technicolour. For this particular moment, in the absence of a studio audience, Robbie provides the laugh track.

Clearing the lump in his throat, Robbie captures Tori's gaze and offers the first fragment of threadbare explanation. "I uh - I'm sorry." He says, every nerve in his body aware of the fact that Tori is still straddling him.

"It's just that, you know. This semester has just been very strange, all of the _things_ and _actuallys_." The statement kicks around in Robbie's head, rattling another memory from last night loose and conjuring a smile at the edges of his mouth. "I guess I'm laughing because, well…this mess just feels more – as weird as this sounds – this mess just feels a little bit more normal."

When Tori speaks, it's slow and hesitant. Robbie gets the distinct impression she's weighing up each word on her tongue. "Yeah, it's – that _is_ weird. But it's not y'know, _bad weird_ or anything. It's just…I'm not used to _this_."

There's a stale moment after that. Tori's words hadn't been especially biting or anything like that. Amidst the uncertainty maybe they'd even been a little sweet. The air is too thick to say anything, so Robbie settles on working his lips into something resembling a smile. Startled, Tori blinks with its emergence and gnaws at her bottom lip. On the heels of that uncertainty though, Tori's lips bloom into something quite wonderful. The corners of her mouth surge upward. It's not sad or watery, it's just there. It's just_ there_.

"This uh, this what?" The question rolls around inside of Robbie's head for a full minute before he verbalizes it. When it finally does spew through his lips, his eyeballs are manic in their sockets, refusing to settle on Tori. Now that he's asking for a definition, all of the security he'd felt has slipped through his fingers. The moment of silence it takes for Tori to answer might be the longest of Robbie's life. It's just white noise and the sound of Robbie's heart beating madly against his ribs.

"This." Somewhat anticlimactically, the static is dulled by another of Tori's maddeningly vague terms. She accompanies the word with a light jab at Robbie's ribs, but it doesn't exactly help. There's a protest shimmying its way onto Robbie's lips, but it dies a very sudden death when the girl, the_ very _pretty girl, on his lap begins to shift. With a final smile that seems to smoulder on her lips, Tori rolls off Robbie's lap and gracefully lands with her back against the wall beside him. Folding her knees up to her chin, Tori cocks her head and regards Robbie for a moment. He gets the distinct impression she's again plotting out her every word.

"I don't know exactly what we are. We're, I guess, just a _this_ at the moment." Tori explains, somehow stuttering and manic all at once. "I like it though – that first time I came back here with you, I thought maybe you just wanted to fu – to you know. But then you didn't, we just – it was nice. It was the first time I've woken up in somebody else's bed and felt okay in a long time."

Tori's words land like lead on Robbie's chest, driving the air from his lungs. It's not a crushing feeling or anything. It's just the inherent weirdness of seeing Tori so raw and exposed. She's fidgeting like a tiny hurricane, sporadically flashing tiny hopeful smiles at Robbie. It's then that Robbie becomes fully aware of just how frayed her nerves are. Clearing his throat of the iron lump that had embedded itself there, Robbie parts his lips and just hopes something stupid doesn't fall through them.

"Can I kiss you?"

Fuck.

Desperation surges through Robbie, he wants more then anything to follow up with something, anything to chase away the thickness in the air. His tongue just sticks to the bottom of his mouth in fear. Robbie's tentatively beginning to make his way off the edge of the bed, but then Tori's hand shoots out and her slender fingers wind around his shaking hand. With the way her eyes are fixed on him and the way she's biting down on her bottom lip, all thoughts of escape rush from Robbie's head. Nervous as he feels and with his heart teetering at the edge of explosion, Robbie scoots towards her. Tori's smirk is just barely there, a whisper of excitement as Robbie closes the distance between them.

This time when their lips meet, it's nothing like the other times Robbie has found himself kissing Tori. Sikowitz isn't lurking behind them yelling about character dynamics, nor does Tori taste like cheap cigarettes and desperation. It's not prefaced with her making sure nobody sees them either. It's sweetness and hope, love and longing, all of the things that had been missing. This kiss, the one where Tori's hands link delicately behind his neck, is lust at its most stripped back. Robbie's so lost in Tori's embrace, yet he's still acutely aware of the way Tori's pulling him tighter like he's something special.

When Robbie breaks away from Tori, it takes him a moment to slow down his manic lungs. When he opens his eyes again, Robbie's startled at the dreamy look on Tori's face. The left edge of her mouth has twitched upwards and her eyelids are heavy.

"That…was-"

In a sudden fit of panic, Robbie intercepts whatever Tori had meant to say by crushing his lips against hers. Tori's rigid for a brief second, an astoundingly long one, but after that her hand is ghosting over Robbie's thigh and he's the one freezing up with shock.

"Oh, _yeah_. Don't think I can't play your game, Sha-"

Being so hopped up on happiness, is a wonderful thing. Robbie's not so terrified when he darts forward this time. Pulling away again, he can't stifle the smug grin splitting his lips. A smirk crawls over Tori's lips in response. With dawn's break painting them shades of yellow and orange, the gesture isn't vicious. She's still a little broken, but for the moment her cracks aren't fissures. There aren't any vicious intentions behind the crease of Tori's mouth; it's merely a playful backdrop as she speaks.

"I still see your game and I -"

He's addicted. It's the only explanation for Robbie lashing out and catching Tori's lips again. It's horrible and rude; he should really let Tori finish her sentences. He wants to, honestly. It's just incredibly hard to resist the urge when Tori's eyes are alight with life and she's not weighed down by her own cynicism.

Setting her face like stone, Tori straightens her shoulders and attempts to look menacing. Considering the ways Robbie's seen Tori contort her face into something terrifying, she's staggeringly unsuccessful as she scolds Robbie. "Let me finish, would -"

It's just a peck this time, the paranoia that he's starting to push his luck yanking Robbie backwards. Tori actually falters when Robbie pulls back, leaning into a pair of lips that have receded. Sprawled over him, Tori peers up at Robbie with her endless eyes. She thrusts her bottom lip out and Robbie feels his heart swell. The look on her face, it's so heart-achingly innocent, so _Tori_, that he feels his heart beat in double time.

"Like I was saying," Tori pauses for another interruption, but Robbie merely smiles serenely at her. Arcing an eyebrow, she presses on. "I see your game, and Mr. Shapiro, I am quite impressed. I think I might keep you."

That final statement comes with an approving nod from Tori. Her eyes are shimmering with mischief and she's flirting with him. Tori Vega is flirting with him and it's plainly obvious. In spite of the fact that he's just kissed Tori several times, Robbie still finds himself in awe of that fact. He's kissed her, and she's flirting with him. Robbie lets out a breath and thinks he could really get used to life being this perfe –

"Yo Shapiro, hide your junk, I'm coming in."

With that voice blaring against the door to his dorm, Robbie remembers that life really does have an uncanny knack for fucking everything up. He screws his eyes shut and tries to block out the blatantly obvious fact that Jade West has blown back into his life at the most inopportune of times.

Things had been going so well, too.


	8. Westerlies Bring Winds of the Past

**_"Someone call an exorcist and help me kill this curse_**

**_I can't stop the bleeding and it's only getting worse"_**

**_"Prepare yourself for an incoming Jade."_**

* * *

The atmosphere is suddenly heavy and oppressive as Robbie attempts to fill his lungs. A mixture of sound, none of which even approach something resembling a word, stumble through Robbie lips. He's unsuccessful in a fairly spectacular way until Tori's hand ensnares his, thumb running over his palm. Hating himself all the while, Robbie shovels the grim reality of what's awaiting Tori off his lips. "There is uh…Tori, I think you may want to prepare yourself for an incoming Jade."

In a sickening sort of way, it's a little astounding just how quickly the happiness haemorrhages from Tori's expression.

"Jade?" The sound crashes through Tori's lips, all gangly teenage angst and high school regrets. Her eyes blow wide and Tori's pupils shrink to pin-points. Haunted by the mention of another ghost from her past, Tori's eyes flicker to the door screaming at its hinges.

"What is Jade doing coming here? Is she your girlfriend or something, what is she?" All of a sudden, Tori's eyebrows crumble over her eyes, a nauseating mixture of anger and betrayal. Robbie's mouth opens and closes, but he doesn't seize up with panic. This, he can handle. _This_ he's heard before from scattered friends over his college career.

"Jade is – we're definitely not a thing." Robbie says emphatically, shaking his head. This time he's the one reaching out and capturing Tori's petite hand in his own. Loosely threading his fingers through hers, he delicately attempts to explain the Jade thing. "Jade is like, she's a sporadic best friend, I guess. We uh, kept in contact." He says, speaking softly because _man_, he thinks Tori is just a word or two from being spooked into flight.

Tori's lips flicker between a scowl and something less menacing. She smiles a little, but it's pained, struggling at the edges. The cracks in her happiness from earlier are flying apart. Robbie takes a deep breath through his nose, holding it for a moment, and then releasing it gently. It just barely calms his spasming heart, but it's enough for now.

"Tori -"

Robbie's just beginning to broach the subject of Jade and himself, when a storm of shimmering midnight hair and glinting piercings rolls through the door. The hinges shriek in protest, but Jade barrels through anyway, impatience permanently scarring her features.

"You have – Oh god, Shapiro. You really have a _girl _in here?" Jade crows, eyes barely flicking in Robbie, and by association Tori's direction, as she stoops to drop her bag beside the door. Her hair is mostly pinned up, but several crooked waves of black hair are spilling onto her shoulders. Her clothes are creased and just barely clinging to her body. Her inattentiveness, combined with her dishevelled state makes Robbie wonder how long it's been since Jade last slept. The room is still for a moment as Jade rifles through her bag and Robbie ponders this. Tori fidgets nervously, and it's something akin to the eye of a storm.

"_Oh Jesus._ It's – what the fuck? Hey, Vega. You have a Vega in here. Good for you, Robot." It's not the acerbic greeting Robbie had expected. Actually, Jade looks shocked. The weariness has blown off her face and shock has been left in its wake. It's fleeting though, that display of emotion. It disappears into the murky waters of Jade's relentless disinterest toward the rest of the world by the time she's circled around the room to Aiden's bed.

"H-hey Jade." The squeak that Tori attempts to pass off as a greeting is straight from Sophomore year. The words hang in the air for a long moment while Tori robotically attempts to wave as well. Jade doesn't return the gesture, instead shoving her hands into her pockets. A small uneasy laugh weaves its way through Tori's lips at that. Defensively, she winds her other arm through the crook of Robbie's elbow.

With his cheeks instantly aflame under the oppressive scrutiny of Jade's gaze, Robbie's body kick into autopilot. His tongue flails and he begins to babble like he's sixteen years old again. "Hey Jade, how's it going? You're looking well; it's good to see you. What brings you to my little corner of the world?"

"Oh you know. Just in the neighbourhood, thought you might be willing to let an old friend crash here for a few days." Jade mentions, all effortless calm as she sinks down onto the edge of Robbie's bed.

"The cot is in its usual spot." The words claw their way through Robbie's lips before his mind even really has a chance to process them.

It's only when his eyes drift back to Tori, that Robbie realizes he probably should have prefaced that statement with something to give it context. Jade reaches that same realization approximately three seconds later. Robbie knows this because of the malicious smirk that edges its way onto her lips. Feeling slightly nauseous, Robbie rakes his hands and laments the way he's suddenly become trapped in the plot to a bad sitcom. It's not an episode where he'll end up rushing between dates with Tori and Jade or anything. If anything, Robbie guesses he'll end up dropped into a pit of rancid mayo, or something equally unpleasant. Tori and Jade have never really gotten along, somehow he doubts absence has made their hearts grow fonder.

The malice eventually drops out of Jade's smirk and gives way to something more genuine. Casually, she pushes off her palms and traipses over to Robbie's closet. When Jade vanishes behind the door, Tori edges closer Robbie, hip knocking against his. Tearing her eyes from Jade, she gives him a shaky little smile. Tori's smile isn't hurt or broken this time; it's just tinged with nervous energy. Robbie feels the tension in the room ebb slightly, and he just lays beside Tori, hands all tangled up. They're stillness set to stillness set to the soundtrack of Jade's rustling through the closet. For the first time since Jade's unceremonious arrival, Robbie isn't stricken with a lingering paranoia that Tori's going to seize the first chance to flee.

That peaceful respite is brief, lasting only until Jade reappears. When she emerges from behind the closet door, Jade's armed with the dilapidated cot that Robbie had been coerced into buying for her last spring. She'd essentially demanded that he buy it after the first night of staying in his dorm. They'd wound up spooning at some point during the night, it had been emotionally scarring. The less said, the better.

Robbie's broken from his reverie by the sound of Jade's voice. "You two should leave. I was driving all night and I'm tired."

"Huh?" Tori asks, speech less than eloquent and eyebrows screw together. Jade's eyes fly toward her and the very air itself seems to come to a screeching halt. Robbie swallows nervously, a reflex born out of all the previous times he's either misheard or misconstrued something Jade has said. He clutches Tori's hand just a little tighter as molten rage begins to simmer in the pit of Jade's stomach. Her eyebrows are drawn together, and her shoulders have straightened. Robbie's very aware that the eruption is nigh when -

"Now!" Jade roars, dragging the word from the fiery depths of hell. It ricochets off the wall, scorching everything in its wake. In this state Jade's all sorts of demonic, she's only grown more horns since Hollywood Arts.

Blinking once, Robbie stumbles to his feet and pulling Tori up alongside himself. He tilts his head is Jade's direction, briefly considering a farewell. The dangerous slits that Jade's eyes have narrowed to alert Robbie that maybe this isn't such a good idea. The sudden way Tori darts for the door, sending him tumbling after her tell him that she doesn't think so either. The door slams shut behind them and _dear god_ is it a relief. Jade West is a difficult proposition at the best of times. Liberated from the pleasantries expected of somebody with a full nights rest, and this is laced with just a hint of irony. Jade West is the thing nightmares are made of.

With several flights of stairs and a hallway between themselves and Jade, Tori's gallop slows to an ambling trot. Robbie's not really sure where they're going and he doubts Tori knows either. What Robbie does know, and that he possesses this piece of information disturbs him to no end, is that Jade's naps tend to last between forty-three and sixty-seven minutes. Maybe they'll just wander around the campus until it's safe to venture near his room again.

"Did we -" Tori pauses, eyes all big and manic as she twists around to look at Robbie's building. Biting down on a smile, Robbie thinks she's probably making sure Jade isn't trailing behind them. "Did we just get kicked out of _your_ room by Jade?"

Falling into step with Tori, Robbie clenches his jaw and stifles another bubble of laughter. There's a brief pause as he just enjoys walking alongside Tori in the morning sunlight. Maybe it's because he hasn't slept yet or maybe he's thrown up everything in his system, but Robbie barely feels hung over. He – Oh man, he should probably say something because Tori's looking at him. Her head is tilted and Robbie gets the distinct impression that she might be trying to read his mind.

"Yup. Pretty much." Robbie answers, pursing his lips and nodding his head. Tori's eyes remain fixed on him as if the answer is unsatisfactory. Nervously, Robbie coughs up a chuckle and scratches the back of his neck. His life really is nothing if not a comedy. His disjointed attempt at laughter only succeeds in causing Tori's eyebrows to wind ever tighter above her nose.

"Jade West, she just came in and took over _your _room? You're okay with this?" Tori reiterates, eyebrows winding even tighter above her nose.

"Yeah, it's - you'd be surprised at how often it happens." Robbie admits, dragging his shoulders up and down. Tori's face remains in a state of flux, struggling between confusion and suspicion. Realizing that perhaps not everyone is aware of the way things have shifted between Jade and himself, Robbie clears his throat.

"Jade and I are…we're sporadic best friends, I guess. Once in awhile, one of us will just go to the other because uh, college is hard, you know?" Robbie fidgets with his fingers, the rattling of chains haunting the outer edges of his mind. He's suddenly all too aware of the root cause behind most of the times he's fled to NYU and Jade's wound up in his room. He wonders if Tori's attempted to bury that skeleton from the past as well. She's become a connoisseur of misery in the past few years, he's sure of that much. The Hollywood monster is an entirely different proposition, though. He wonders if –

_Fuck._

A sudden and intensely horrible realisation slinks up on Robbie, wrapping itself around his mind. She doesn't know. In the past few years, Tori's thrown herself so far off the grid that even the news of one of her dearest friends being swallowed by the fame monster hasn't reached her ears. Robbie clenches his eyes shut, but the darkness offers no sanctuary. Headlines and news clips, memories and an obituary flash across his eyelids. It's all one terrible congealed mass, but he can remember the order of it all perfectly. It's those images, the ones that still keep him up at night every once in while, that present Robbie with the grim truth that he'll have to tell Tori at some point.

"How often do – You guys are actually _friends_?" It's Tori's voice that plucks Robbie from the murk. Peeling back his eyelids, Robbie studies Tori for a moment. He's seen that expression before, all inquisitive and intrusive at the same time. He'll be lucky to stumble out of this conversation without dumping several years of trauma on her all at once. Robbie does the only thing that he can. He walks toward the horizon. With skip, Tori's falling into stride alongside him though. That maddening expression is still etched into her face. It's maddening because it forces Robbie to confront the reality that he'll never be able to run from his problems, or from the past.

"Jade is, we've been friends since senior year. You remember, you said it was the greatest day of _your_ life when Jade got _me_ a birthday present." For a moment, that memory chases the spectre of everything else away. Robbie's lips split into a shaky smile, a brief respite.

"Yeah, but. No offense, but why? I mean – out of everybody you're still friends with Jade?" Robbie doesn't even really have to concentrate on Tori's voice to know what she's asking.

Robbie doesn't say anything for a while after that. He just puts his head down and concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other. Before Robbie even realizes he's been gnawing at the inside of his bottom lip, the metallic taste of copper begins to trickle into his mouth. By this point, the curiosity in Tori's expression has been replaced by concern. Etched into Tori's face, it's such a genuine emotion, fuelled by a desire to help. It's something the girl he'd known at Hollywood Arts would have been capable of. It's the very thing Robbie's been attempting to draw out of Tori all month, but right now he just wants the distance back. The pain on her face, all it does is remind Robbie of the day he'd helped to bury his best friend.

The memory weighs on Robbie, appearing first as a dot on the horizon, and then slowly swallowing his entire field of vision. More than before, the details are vivid this time. It's almost a state of hyper-reality when he can feel every ache and pain of the crowd scattered around him. A voice from the past says that time heals all wounds. They'd missed out the part where some of those wounds become infected, festering for an eternity. Only sewing shut with the click of another coffin lid above deadened eyes.

"It's um. It's like a really long story. Can we – I'll tell you later." There's a crack in Robbie's voice. The words are splintered, cutting his lips even more savagely than before. Tori smiles, but it's pained one, hollow and far away. Robbie guesses it's the distance he'd been hoping for. He's driven her away now, he guesses, all in one fitful bout of silence. It might be a Robbie Shapiro personal best. He's about to utter a final goodbye when -

"Maybe you'll tell me later over dinner and something uh – like a movie, play, magic show?" Tori asks unsteadily, the shaky breaths punctuating her words making it clear how unfamiliar she is with this process. The process of –

Oh god, she's asking _him_ out.

It's a strange feeling, the one that's churning in Robbie's gut. Misery from the deep recesses of his past dancing with the overwhelming nature of have Tori Vega ask him out. In the time it takes Robbie to process this information, Tori's expression ranges from hopeful, to disappointed, to flighty. By the time Robbie's lips are parting with a reply her heel is already raised with the intention to run.

"Yeah, um. We can – lets do that. Tomorrow night?" The reply stumbles drunkenly off Robbie's tongue, somehow making its way over to Tori. Her expression is solemn at first, but then she's nodding. The ghost of a smile haunts her lips, but she doesn't fully embrace it.

"We could uh…I'm impatient. Why not tonight?" There's a tinge of insecurity in Tori's voice and she swipes her hands across her abdomen self-consciously. It's kind of adorable; the sight of it briefly chasing away the melancholy that's collected in Robbie's chest.

"No money." The reply is reality, a corrosive force attacking the happy little bubble Robbie's fleetingly managed to lose himself in. It's weird then, that Tori brightens with the sound of Robbie's voice.

"Money? We definitely don't need money. Meet me outside your dorm at 7 O'clock." The little smile on Tori's lips blossoms into something dazzling with that. He's dumbstruck and just nods along like a lumbering caveman that's somehow wandered into polite conversation. Maybe that had been Tori's intention all along, a stray thread of golden laughter bursts through her lips.

A kiss is pressed to his cheek and then Tori's saying goodbye. He mumbles something back, but he's too caught up in all that's just transpired to form any meaningful words. It should have been a tender moment, maybe the best of his life, but Robbie finds that with the spectre of past events hanging over them, everything's washed out in tones of grey. At the moment a couple meanders past him, all laughter and heart-shaped eyes as Tori disappears from sight. Growling under his breath, Robbie ducks his head and thunders toward his dorm, a collage of love and death flashing in front of his eyes.

Robbie drifts aimlessly around the campus for the next forty minutes or so, pushing forwards in no particular direction. He's just barely cognisant of the real world, too wrapped in the thoughts swimming around in his head to pay much attention. When he finally winds up back in front of the door to his room, Robbie pauses, palm hot against the cool metal of the handle. He contemplates what's awaiting him on the other side. His best friend and his worst enemy, usually all in the one sentence. Robbie's mind winds back to the first time Jade had visited him.

It had been an unassuming evening in August; the sun had already fallen out of the sky. He'd been clutching a drink and actually succeeding in talking to a blonde girl at some party. The girl had been pretty in a miscellaneous, sorority sort of way and he'd been a little drunk. That conversation had been the calm before a ragged girl coming straight from New York had parted the crowd. She'd been all tears and gnashing teeth, a mess of mascara and desperation as she dragged him from the party.

* * *

Interlude: A Westerly Blows In

_After a mostly unsuccessful attempt by Jade at blending in, they'd found their way out onto the porch. Lost in their own little world, Jade would explain how she'd pinpointed Robbie's whereabouts through some fairly advanced Facebook stalking. He'd go on to laugh at that and mentioned maybe she should be training to become a private eye instead of studying. Somehow, the Seinfield-esque observation had pulled a genuine laugh from Jade._

_Instead of dying out like it should have, the joke would carry through the rest of the night. It would culminate in Robbie using his Drama Department keys to break into a props closet. Drunk off sadness and cheap beer, they'd requisition a detective's costume, or maybe it had just been a trench coat and fedora, for Jade. The whole thing had been ridiculous really, playing dress up and losing themselves in a parallel universe where Jade would speak with a voice straight from Dirty Harry and Robbie would give her increasingly bizarre people to investigate. Those sorts of things – Robbie knows the Psych majors called it escapism - always were their crutch though. Not once would the subject of Jade's abrupt appearance be broached._

_The night had ended with them both in Robbie's bed. Jade had been wearing her fedora and little else, he'd been merely been wearing his glasses. They'd decided that their night was a mistake the next morning, something best left in their 40's noir film alternate. That had been the tale of Robbie and Jade, lovers. It had also been the beginning of Robbie's bizarre and maybe even unhealthy college support network with Jade._

* * *

Blowing a flippant breath through his lips, Robbie shakes off the memory, flicking his wrist and shoving open the door in front of him. Predictably enough, Jade had set up her cot beside his bed. She's lying on her back, a trio of remotes resting on her stomach. Her eyes are fixed on the television and the cutting sound of the scream from the speakers is enough for Robbie to know she's watching a horror movie. Trudging past her, Robbie falls into the sweet embrace of his bed and half watches it too.

"So, you and _Vega_, huh?" Jade notes, no doubt feeding off the grisly death that has befallen one of the lead characters in the movie she's watching. Robbie's eyes fly over to Jade. Though it's less than an hour past noon, her features are usually gaunt, giving the impression that the sunlight is avoiding her. Maybe it's the grim expression cursing Jade's face. Not quite silent rage and not quite heartbreaking disappointment; Robbie's only seen this particular emotion grace Jade's face a handful of times. Once when Beck had broken up with her and another time when Cat hadn't gotten into NYU. The last time had been when Robbie had sadly reported to Jade that he hadn't managed to contact Tori about the funeral.

"It's uh, _kind_ of a thing. Kind of. I'm not really sure what we are." Robbie says, pushing a disjointed reply from his tongue. It's true too, he's really not sure. Tori has sort of – well he thinks she has – asked him out, but they aren't _Facebook official_ or anything. Robbie tries to smile, but the corners of his mouth barely lift because Jade is just staring at him. The longer she does that, the larger the lump in his throat becomes.

"Have you bought Sweet Sally Peaches a _soda pop_ yet?" Jade finally utters, the voice of southern belle wafting into the air. She's not struggling in the slightest with a light smirk and the sarcasm is oddly comforting. He'd been expecting something vicious.

Comforted as he might feel, Robbie's still stuck for words.

Buying some time with the action, Robbie ambles over to his bed, dropping into its soft embrace. A few moments run by, stripped bare of words. All the silence does is give him cause to think about how disconnected Tori is from the portrait Jade's words have painted. In spite of all the little changes in Tori, the thought slips between his ribs, leaving him feeling like broken glass on the inside.

Robbie's still stewing in the inherent tragedy that seems to stalk Hollywood Arts alumni when Jade clears her throat with a loud grunt. Without really thinking, he lurches into a barely there and intentionally obtuse response. "We uh, went for waffles and coffee last week."

Curiously enough, there's a lull between the tail end of his sentence and Jade's response. Jade's never been one for tact, her hesitance has him on edge. Pulling his limbs tightly against his body, Robbie winds his fingers around one another and just tries to brace himself for whatever's on the horizon.

"Shouldn't you be exploding into a cloud of sparkles right about now?"

Jade's artfully sarcastic when she does speak, the nonchalance in her voice betrayed by the way her eyes drift away from the television. She's propped herself up onto her elbows now, eyes glinting with a flicker of curiosity. Robbie tells himself it's got to be curiosity, there's no way its concern. Even years into their friendship, that concept unnerves the both of them.

"What do you mean, I am – I…" The way Jade's features sharpen at the presence of a lie stop Robbie in his tracks. Abandoning his half-hearted denial, he careens toward the truth, or something like it. "I should be, I guess. It's complicated though, Tori's – things are different now."

Jade's eyes narrow. Her lips twitch, quivering dangerously, like gates with a dozen mad-dog thoughts trapped behind them. She cages her the errant thoughts eventually though, offering a simple word in their absence. "Yeah."

The word lingers heavily, and her agreement gives Robbie that feeling of busted glass once again. "I kind of picked up on that. There was a distinct lack of pep when she realized it was me." Jade says, disturbingly careful with her words for once.

"Pep?"

Unexpectedly, the word weaves it's way through Robbie's melancholy. It drags a real laugh out of him, and he's reminded that Jade's humour isn't always cutting. Sometimes it's subtle, a silly word slipped into her dark monologues. She's always had the most insidious way of making him laugh, even when the whole world's crashing down. He's emitting a soft chuckle when Jade's frown splits into the lightest of smiles. For that one moment there's both at ease and Robbie's shoulders feel lighter, if only a little.

"Yes _pep_." It's mostly a grow, but not menacing in the slightest. The difficulty Jade has in pursing her lips into a scowl sees to that. The air in the room seems lighter, and Robbie's able to shelter from his darkest thoughts there for a time.

"Jesus Shapiro, just because I don't like it, doesn't mean I'm not going to notice when the worlds leading distributor of pep is all _normal_, and not freakishly happy or whatever." Jade states, having been lost in another moment of contemplation. Then again, maybe she's just speaking because the silence is on the verge of overwhelming her as well.

"I thought Cat was the world's leading distributor of pep?" Robbie comments dryly, stumbling back from the past. Rubbing his fists against his eyes, Robbie feels himself returning to some semblance of normalcy again with Jade's presence.

"Cat is the worlds leading distributor of inane ramblings." Jade sneers, rolling her eyes in a wholly unnecessary way. Unexpectedly, it drags a stray laugh from Robbie. Jade looks at him strangely and then -

"I kind of, I missed you, Jade." Robbie blurts out, haemorrhaging all kinds of emotions that Jade hates. Instead of lashing out, Jade just flops back against her cot and dramatically throws her palms over her face.

"Don't be gross, Shapiro." Jade sniffs, emerald eyes peeking through the cracks between her fingers. Readjusting her posture, Jade rolls onto her side and regards Robbie with a tiny smirk. It's angled in the subtlest of ways, but it's an acknowledgement that maybe she agrees. Robbie's come to realize that their friendship, strange and disjointed as it might appear, is his anchor to the present. While Tori's inadvertently causing hurricanes with a flutter of her eyelashes, Robbie knows Jade is the thing that will keep him chained to earth. She's the one that will remind Robbie that life went on in Hollywood after Tori vanished and Beck died.

* * *

**If you're enjoying this story drop a review, let me know. I've got most of the next story arc written, maybe I'll have another chapter up in the next day or two with a little encouragement :D**

**In the mean time, check out Change Their Worlds. I'm co-authoring it and it's a whole lotta Rori/Bade/Coming of age goodness.**


	9. Red Lights & Unfamiliar Sights

_**"Time stands still**_  
_**The way it did before**_  
_**It's like I'm sleepwalking**_

_**Time stands still"**_

* * *

The rest of the day is – the rest of the day is akin to being adrift in the middle of the ocean. Robbie finds his heart kicking with anxiety, but his limbs are going numb from the monotony of it all. He's waiting for the sun to drop out of the sky so Tori will crawl out of the shadows, but the light is relentless, streaming endlessly through the window. The sun stubbornly remains high in the sky and _god_ is it frustrating. He mentions all of this to Jade, impatience carved all through his expression.

Jade's back is to Robbie, but at the sound of his voice, her shoulders drop. Sighing dramatically, Jade's response is swift and brutal as she twists toward him. "You're being overdramatic and your food sucks." She announces, discerning gaze cutting right through Robbie.

Screwing his eyes shut, Robbie rolls to his back and just lies there. There's a vaguely triumphant noise and the sound of a foil bag rustling. Robbie guesses that Jade's discovered Aiden's stash of Doritos. Opening his eyes jut wide enough to bring Jade into focus, Robbie watches as she situates herself on the cot beside him. Jade's lips twist like she's going to say something, but she remains silent, turning on another movie instead. Robbie angles his body to watch along with her, but his eyelids are beginning to feel like lead – sleep beckons him.

Robbie's mind is a contradiction if nothing else. Finding hope in the bleakest of situations, but also capable of distorting the most innocuous things into something capable of cutting himself to shreds. Robbie's aware of it, but no more so than when he's lapsed into unconsciousness. The dream, or nightmare more accurately, that he's lapsed into is just another example. The faint lines of his dorm are visible in the background, a grotesque and towering caricature of reality. The sole illumination in the scene projecting itself against Robbie's eyelids is a dingy streetlamp. Its light is flickering, but the figure beneath it is unmistakable. Robbie sees himself. His skin is stretched tightly over his bones, and he's clutching a bouquet of flowers. He's just barely clinging to life and he's entirely alone. He's waiting for Tori. She hasn't arrived yet, in his dream she never will.

Gasping, Robbie sits bolt upright. Rivulets of cold sweat bead against his skin as he frantically attempts to fill his lungs. Balling his fists, Robbie scrubs them over his eyes, clawing the dream's bleak hyper-reality from his vision. As he becomes increasingly aware of his surroundings, Robbie hears two distinct voices filtering through the air. Opening his eyes, Robbie swings his head in the direction of the sound. At some point during his nap, sleep – whatever it had been – Aiden's come back to their dorm. He's sitting on his bed, legs dangling off the side as Jade berates him about actually _liking _Disco from atop her cot. With his breathing returning to normal, Robbie's lips crease into a slight smile. Watching Jade get worked up over nothing is reassuring in a strange way. It's so much easier than watching her come apart at the seams when life is just too much. Jade's at the tail end of this, her latest lecture, when Aiden lurches forward. He takes a swipe at the bag of chips cradled against Jade's torso, but she deftly avoids it.

"Jackass! You can't just come in here and eat other people's food." She remarks, which given the context is incredibly ironic. Aiden wilts, Robbie laughs. He thinks it had been a joke, but when it relates to Jade, nothing is certain.

"They're – those are my chips." Aiden states, tone disproportionately sombre considering he's only lost one of roughly a dozen packets. Jade's lips swing upwards maliciously as she plunges her hand into the packet in her lap. The whole thing – Jade's Jade-ness and Aiden's misery – combines to coax a loud string of laughter from Robbie.

"Oh, Shapiro. You're awake. Good. Wouldn't want to be tardy and keep lady Vega waiting, would we?" Jade asks, swivelling in Robbie's direction. She flutters her eyelashes sardonically, but without rings of dark makeup around her eyes, the irony is somewhat lost. It strikes Robbie that she's showered at some point while he was asleep. He wonders how long he'd been out for.

"What -"

"Vega! You're going on a date with _Vega_?" Aiden's voice blisters into the air, his incredulity scything through Robbie's attempted query about the time.

"Wait a minute. Vega? He calls her Vega too?" Jade's voice isn't hard like Robbie had expected. The distain that Tori's surname usually flies off her lips with is absent. Instead, Jade's eyes have widened fractionally. She might have mastered holding the muscles in her face taut, but Jade's not fast enough to snuff out the curiosity that flares up in her eyes.

"Uh, pretty much everybody does. I think Rob over there is the only one that even _knew _her first name at one point." Aiden replies, palms up as Jade twists in his direction.

"Shapiro, explain." Jade says flatly, unceremoniously swinging her gaze back to Robbie. Her lips have withered into a bleak little line and her eyebrows are crowding against her eyes.

In that moment, Robbie knows he's cornered. He's seen that expression on Jade's face before, she's relentless. He knows she won't let this subject drop now. Sighing with great resignation, Robbie begins to shuffle through the past month or so of his memories. They're all tangled up and messy. It's not ideal for explaining a complicated situation to a girl that he knows possesses all the patience of a lit stick of dynamite.

"Tori is – uh, you remember talking about the pep, right?" The words stick stubbornly to his tongue as Robbie speaks, making the task of stringing a sentence together unnecessarily difficult. Jade nods along, like he's not speaking total gibberish though. He presses on. "Tori's not so – the pep isn't there anymore. I don't know why, but she's – Tori is so cynical about love and people and…just everything, I suppose."

There's a pause with that statement and static pops in the air. Robbie flicks his eyes between Jade and Aiden, willing them to say _something_. Aiden just sits on his bed peering into his lap. His effortless cool has abandoned him and his movements are clunky as he fidgets with his lighter. Jade's silent as well, sort of nodding along with a conversation that only she can hear.

"I kind of – I think I know what you mean Shapiro. That kind of, that _really_ sucks. But look, Vega was always like…abnormally optimistic. I'm sure it's in there somewhere. Festering and probably just _waiting _to spring out at one of us." Jade says, attempting to look disinterested. Her eyes betray her though, all big and strangely mournful. She cares a little bit, or even a lot. Maybe Jade's just as sick of seeing broken things come out of Hollywood Arts as he is. Tori deserves to be more than a statistic.

"Yeah." Robbie jerks his head into an abrupt nod and rearranges his shattered lips into something like a smile. Jade reflects the action, pushing her mouth into a similar gesture. Robbie doesn't push for more. He never does.

Time, it's a concept that theoretically adheres to a rigid structure. Sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four hours to a day and so on. The thing about it is, there are shades of grey. Robbie experiences most of those shades in the time before his date with Tori. At first the seconds seem to stretch into eternity, empires could crumble and fall in the time it takes for the sun slump against the horizon. After that, minutes drag their heels as Robbie steps towards his closet. Entire hours drop off the clock when Robbie realizes that his _entire_ wardrobe is horrific. He panics over this for an unperceivable amount of time – maybe minutes, maybe half an hour – before Jade's patience erodes out of existence. Slamming her palms against her cot and flying upright, Jade surges past Robbie and toward his closet. In the blink of an eye, Robbie's left holding a dark button up shirt.

The clock's treacherous hand clicks into place. It's seven O'clock and he's now officially late.

Lurching into motion, Robbie sheds the shirt he's currently wearing and dives into the one Jade's given him. Three minutes after that, Robbie's launching himself down the stairs, flying toward the entrance to his building, lagging behind schedule. Ninety seconds, or however long it is now, is fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but Robbie pushes himself to run faster and cover more space. In spite of Jade's opinion, it's not even because he's a stickler for punctuality. Robbie's loath to be late mostly because of his previous life experiences. A litany of events from his past that have Robbie convinced that fate despises him – or at least is rooting against him – and will use every possible extra second that being late provides to stomp all over his dreams.

By the time Robbie flies through the twin doors at the front of his building, he's approximately four and a half minutes late. Careening into the crisp night's air, Robbie throws one foot in front of another, recklessly attempting to claw back the time his indecision has robbed him of. Maybe he's careless or maybe it really is his running battle with destiny, but the end result is Robbie slamming into a body waiting at the edge of the footpath. There's a feminine shriek and Robbie's limbs get all tangled up with hers. The only silver lining to the collision is that Robbie manages to twist himself to take the brunt of their inevitable impact with the ground. Chivalry isn't dead. Apparently neither are the nerves in his back with the way that they're screaming their disapproval.

"Oof, heya Rob." The body - a very slender and feminine body with a pretty voice - exclaims. With a lump rapidly thickening in his throat, Robbie flicks his eyes toward the girl hovering over him and - _crap_.

"Oh god. Oh – how's it going, Tori?" Robbie yelps in response, words burning the back of his throat. Looming over him, hair dangling between them, Tori's face is benign – maybe even a little amused.

"Oh I'm good. You know, just trying out for the Football team, I guess…" Tori comments blithely, dragging Robbie out of the shame spiral that he's already seven or eight rotations into. At the blank look on his face, Tori laughs a little bit, snorting in the process. Stuttering to a halt with an ungraceful jolt, she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip and carefully pushes herself upright.

It's then that a block of pale light crosses Tori's face. With her perfect cheekbones are tinged red with embarrassment and her eyes all widened, Tori's not so scary anymore. She's always been forgiving enough toward Robbie and all of his clumsiness; apparently charging into her by mistake isn't any cause for change in her mind. Robbie slowly tears his body from the pavement, ignoring the complaints of his limbs during the arduous process. When he's standing upright again, he notices the way Tori's grinning at him a little too widely. Blinking, Robbie unsubtly smooths his shirt just for something to do.

"Uh, yes?" Robbie asks sharply, anxious from the way Tori's eyes have lingered on him. His voice stalks from his lips more gruffly than he'd intended. If she's bothered by it, Tori doesn't give any indication. Instead, dragging her shoulders up and down in an easy gesture.

"You're – you actually dressed up for tonight and uh, you look really good Monsieur Shapiro." He _really _hadn't been expecting that. Tori's comment barrels into him and Robbie's jaw swings open as she waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

"You uh," It's at this point where Robbie becomes something of a sad nerd cliché. His eyes sweep over Tori and his breath sticks in his throat at the sight of her outfit. Its not that Tori's spilling out of her clothes or anything like that. What she'd been wearing last night had been more revealing. Mostly, Robbie's grinning like an idiot because Tori's abandoned the uniformly black outfits he's seen all semester. Her blouse is deep violet, a shimmery material that blazes under the streetlamp's dim glow. She's wearing simple grey skinny jeans and a pair of knee-high boots. She looks –

"Tori, you look so beautiful." He blurts out. Tori looks like a ghost from the past as she smiles at the ground with the comment. When she does look up at again, eyes shielded by thick eyelashes, Robbie feels his heart kick wildly against his ribs.

"I'm not – I wasn't sure what to wear." Tori says, flipping her hair. The gesture is tinged with nervousness, it's not as smooth as usual. "I thought that since Jade is here, I might stray from the all black look." She adds, smiling tightly, an arm sweeping up and down her torso.

"I_ am _enjoying my Tori Vega with a side of color." Robbie, somehow acting like a real boy and not a puppet, jokes back. Tori giggles softly, maybe because he can be a little funny, maybe because the situation is so ridiculous.

They stay frozen to the spot for a little while after that. It feels like an eternity to Robbie, but more than likely time is just playing tricks on him again and it's only been a few seconds. Clearing his throat, Robbie broaches conversation again.

"So, tonight…" He begins conversationally, scratching the inside of his forearm. Tori's eyes follow the movement briefly, flicking back up to Robbie's eyes. When he's slow to make a point, she takes a little half step forward.

"So, tonight…" Tori parrots, coffee stained irises sparkling mischievously as she drops her voice into an imitation of Robbie's. He laughs and Tori's chest swells and deflates with a deep breath. Robbie almost kids himself into believing it had been a sign of nervousness.

"We're uh, the date thing – is this a date? Can this be a date, like a really real one? I'm not – you don't have to kiss me goodnight when it's all over or anything. I'd settle for – I don't know. I just, Tori I really like you." _That_ just explodes from nowhere. Tori's eyebrows spike and she blinks hard, as if struggling to string Robbie's words into something coherent. After a moment of disentangling the jumble, she sinks her teeth into her bottom lip again and gives a sharp nod.

"Yeah." Tori's answer is said amidst a goofy little smile. Numb with shock, Robbie watches as Tori's fingers skitter over his wrist. The skin left in the wake of Tori's touch blazes with sensation.

"Can we – where do you want to go? I have like uh, three dollars until tomorrow. I wasn't lying when I said I don't have any money. It's lame I know, but -"

Robbie's midway through informing a very pretty girl of just how financially insolvent he is when Tori swallows the distance between them. She takes one last step forward and then her lips are muffling the words coming from Robbie. It doesn't last long, but Robbie's still breathless when the kiss ends. A little bit dizzy, he watches as Tori hums contentedly to herself. Blinking, Robbie wonders how this girl and the hopeless one he's been trying to bring happiness to are the same person. This girl a memory raised from the dead - as stupid as it sounds - she's way more Tori than _Vega_.

"That's three dollars more then we need." Tori says lightly, a crooked smile hanging from her lips. For the first time in a while, Robbie feels like their conversation isn't drowning in righteous teen angst leftover from high school. Even still, Tori's left him curious, on the verge of exploding into a fit of questions. Robbie's lips are parting when the hand on his wrist slides down, index finger tracing his veins and quelling his curiosity. Tori's palm slips into his and Robbie's content again. He doesn't think he'll ever get sick of this thing – the intimacy – that's crept into his interactions with Tori.

Still drunk off the warmth emanating from her hand, Robbie allows himself to be lead along the sleepy little street by his dormitory. He drifts alongside Tori and they chat idly about nothing in particular, bleeding into the endless march of students heading into the city for Saturday night. It's new, but it's also incredibly normal. Beneath the moon, the storm clouds and turmoil of the day are worlds away.

"So, about this free entertainment?" Robbie asks, curiosity striking him again when the buildings either side of them begin to feel claustrophobic. They're mostly alone again, separated from the pack. Tori smirks a little at the question. They press forward and a block of light crawls over Tori's ruby lips. They're a tantalizing prospect as her tongue darts out to wet them. Robbie's reminded of the way Tori's kisses had tasted in a manner that's subtle in much the same way a sledgehammer is.

"We're getting to it. I promise we're getting to it." Tori says, glancing sidelong at Robbie and dazzling him with a smile. "The best things in life are free, nobody ever said they were close." Tori adds, mischievousness lighting up her eyes again as she drops her hand away from his. A question teeters on Robbie's lips, but Tori's on the move again, hooking her arm through the crook of his elbow and charging forward. With his arm still wedged at her side, Robbie follows along willingly enough though.

After a while - maybe fifteen minutes - of weaving through the streets alongside Tori, Robbie finds himself in the heart of a sprawling crowd. It might be a line, but honestly everything is just so chaotic that it's hard to tell. Craning his neck, Robbie can see a litany of neon signs littering the roadside. Some of them are flickering, just barely clutching to life. Others are blazing with enthusiasm. All of them feature the female form in one way or another. Robbie thinks that maybe Tori's brought him to Berkley's attempt at a red light district. Flicking his gaze away from the bright lights around him, Robbie looks at Tori. Amid the squalor around them, she's at ease. He's hasn't ever seen her look this comfortable in her own skin on campus.

Leaning back onto the balls of his feet, Robbie begins to speak. "So, Tori. This is -" Somebody near them lights a cigarette. The plume of smoke infiltrates Robbie's lungs, bringing his query to an end with a fairly brutal coughing fit. Tori's eyebrows furrow together and she rubs soothing circles along Robbie's spine as he doubles over.

"There are – Tori there are people smoking here!" Robbie wheezes, eyeballs flying around the crowd.

"Robbie would you calm down? I _know _you've dealt with worse on campus." Tori retorts, already laughing at the scandalized expression on Robbie's face as the last word leaves her mouth. Robbie's all primed to retort with something witty, but he just closes his mouth when Tori laces her arm through his once more. She winds her fingers around his forearm and he wants to remain outraged. He wants to bare his teeth and feel aggravated, but the way she's ensnared him, Robbie just feels too reassured to manage it. The vague paranoia that maybe she's laughing _at _him disappears. Beneath all of the bravado and defensiveness, she's still Tori, still as good natured as ever. He's sure of it.

The line lurches forward. It's sporadic, but near enough to mechanical in it's precision. Robbie doesn't really think about it too much though, he's too immersed in conversation with the girl beside him. Free of the oppressive influence of the College experience, Robbie notices flecks and sparks of Tori's inherent goofiness beginning to litter the conversation. She makes another of the world's worst jokes, and then Robbie's laughing again, too amused to really take notice of Tori's hand disappearing into her black clutch bag.

"Hey, what -"

* * *

**Expect to see the conclusion of Robbie and Tori's date in a few days or right away if you guys demand it through alerts :P**


	10. An Army of Lights

**I'm super sorry this took so long to come out, guys. My laptop had a meltdown, so I lost three completed chapters of this fic. On the plus side, I've written this new one, and honestly it's not as fluffy as what I had, but it does move the story along a lot faster. Anyway, without further ado…**

* * *

"Really, sunglasses at night?"

Robbie's kidding, expecting a laugh or maybe a smile from Tori. Her gentle disposition and easy sense of humour have historically made wrestling a laugh from her a relatively easy task. This time though, she just looks grim, eyes wandering down the street. Robbie follows her line of sight, it's frozen on the neon sign at the front of the line that they're sort of in. Tori sighs, deep and heavy with dread. Robbie doesn't feel any more at ease.

"I'm just – if you have a thing with your eyes where you need the glasses, I'm just kidding." Robbie stutters, feeling the awkward moment between them beginning to congeal.

Blinking, Tori takes a deep breath. "Sorry, Rob." She says, smile tight. Her eyes don't quite remain on him, flitting restlessly along the street again. Tori's apology isn't insincere, maybe just a little stilted by the circumstances.

"So uh, where are we going?" Robbie tries again. The dull buzz of the loosely defined line in front of them barely drowns out the silence between Tori and himself. Tori lifts one side of her mouth, a badly constructed attempt at a confident smirk. Robbie's not sure if it's the bass in the distance, or his heart, but there's a pounding rhythm in his ears. The weak smile on Tori's face, the tension in the air and the oppressive neon above them, none of it gives him a good feeling.

"Was it just me or did uh, did it sound like I wanted tonight be a date?" The question comes out of the blue, just as the line takes its three mechanical steps forward. The tone in Tori's voice isn't spiteful, nor is it scathing. It's just genuine curiosity, which might be just as disastrous.

"Y-yeah, a little bit." The reply eeks through Robbie's mouth. His jaw snaps shut immediately after, too late to stifle it. Gritting his teeth, Robbie screws his eyes shut, attempting to disassociate himself from the catastrophe coming to life beside him. He's certain that his reply will mean nothing but bad things. Tori doesn't speak straight away and Robbie's dread is palpable. Like a fool though, he opens his eyes eventually, twisting his head in her direction.

"Good. Robbie Shapiro, I _do_ want to date you." She says, lips flinching in a sad way that makes Robbie think things aren't all that simple.

"W-what?" Is Robbie's response, charm bleeding all over the sidewalk as he stupidly gives Tori a reason to doubt her previous statement.

"You're special." Tori says, a little bit sadly as she pushes her glasses high onto the bridge of her nose. Armour, Robbie guesses. "I'm just – You need to know a couple of things about me. Maybe we can, if you still want to that is, go and do something later."

"Tori –"

"Robbie." As she cuts through Robbie's protests, there's a warning tone in Tori's voice. "Please…just let me do this, okay?"

In spite of her request, or maybe because of it, Tori doesn't say anything for a long while after that. Once in a while she glances sidelong at Robbie, though. He trembles, feeling uncomfortably out in the open as Tori hides behind her glasses. Each step they take forward is terrifying in it's own right as well. Robbie feels no more at ease when the name above the door they're edging towards is vague and unassuming. 'TigerBox' it says in flashy neon script. Robbie's not really sure what it could be, a night club maybe. Turning his eyes to the patrons around Tori and himself, Robbie has no doubt that whatever lies inside, TigerBox will be an establishment where he'll feel wildly out of place.

When they're three people from the bouncer and the music is almost deafening, Tori reaches out, presses her palm to Robbie's, and pulls herself closer to him. If Robbie strains, he thinks he can hear her heartbeat over the music when they're at the front of the line. Perverse as it is, that's what finally gives Robbie solace, the knowledge that he's not the only one freaking out slightly.

When they're at the head of the line, the bouncer eyes Robbie critically, his expression verging on incredulity that such an uncool boy would dare attempt to pass him.

"No way." The bouncer, a wall of a man says, casting a discerning look over Robbie. Tori and himself haven't even stepped up to the red velvet rope and already they're being denied. Robbie's shoulders drop in defeat, but Tori's demeanour swings in a wildly different direction. The nervous anxiety she'd been sharing with Robbie mutates into wild determination. Releasing her grip on Robbie, she walks right up to the behemoth blocking their path. Glaring – well maybe glaring, Robbie can't quite see – she pulls her glasses low. The bouncer's attitude jolts too. At the sight of Tori's eyes, he's mumbling a hurried apology and ushering her through.

"Tori, how did you – you're a bad ass!" Robbie exclaims, being led inside by the hand. As they careen past the bouncer, who may or may not be pouting, Tori allows herself a miniscule smile. Careful not to stay still for too long, she drags Robbie through a barrage of blinding lights. Writhing female forms surround them, but Robbie can't make out the details. It's all a blur as Tori yanks him into a room marked VIP only.

Presumably little more gruffly then she'd intended, Tori shoves Robbie through the doorway. Once he's inside, she swings the door shut behind them and slumps against it. Taking a deep, jittery breath, Tori shuts her eyes. Robbie can't quite manage that though, spinning around, he takes in his surroundings. The wallpaper is animal print. Predictably enough it's tiger stripes, a subtle white and silver shade. The furnishings are all golden and Robbie's overcome with the uncomfortable feeling that he's wandered into the home of a Columbian drug lord, mountains of cocaine hidden under the floorboards.

"Tori, Tori I'm not sure we should be here. I know you said I'm special, but I don't think I'm a very important person. I think that -"

"Robbie," Tori hisses sharply. "You're important to me and _that's_ why we're here."

"Okay." Robbie says diplomatically, realising that disagreeing with Tori while her heckles are up like this wouldn't be wise. Tori steps past him, dropping into a couch sitting beneath an oil painting of a fairly voluptuous woman. Tentatively, Robbie eases himself into the space beside her. Not for the first time, they sit in silence after that. Tori organising her thoughts, Robbie waiting anxiously.

"Rob, I'm sorry. This is – it's hard." Tori says after a while, voice softer this time. "You probably remember how I – how at Hollywood Arts everything used to work out okay if I sung a song and shook my hips a little so -" She's barely begun the story, and already Tori's voice is failing her. Robbie can tell this isn't going to be an easy conversation. "I guess that's what Mason liked about me anyway. Even after he signed me, he always said it was my best talent." It has all of the characteristics of a laugh, but the sound that leaves Tori lips after that comment is anything but joyful. She drags the glasses from her face and the eyes behind them nothing if not rueful.

"But then, I guess I was never really bad enough for him either." Tori sighs, simmering anger cooled by regret. Robbie swallows the lump in his throat as Tori's lips begin to part. What she's about to say – this slither of information she's about to deliver, he already knows what she's about to tell him. He'd read about it on the internet at the time and sadly texted her last known phone number. "In the end he dropped me from the label. Just after I saw the artwork for my first single actually. It was going to me called Forever." Tori laughs again, because man, there isn't anything funnier then your own tragedy. Robbie winces at the coarse sound.

"Are you – Tori, you don't have to tell me this." Robbie tells her, a frown hanging from the corners of his mouth as he attempts to defuse the turmoil in Tori's face. She shakes her head, he'd sort of been expecting that.

"I have to. I -" Tori says solemnly, pausing, exhaling violently. "When I got dropped, Mason was - _that douche_ - he was kind enough to leave me with a massive loan. _Photoshoots and apartments aren't cheap, Miss Vega._" The last part leaves Tori's mouth with a British accent, a direct quote, Robbie guesses. In the wake of it, Robbie sits silently, processing the information.

"Okay." Tori says, impatient or maybe just anxious to begin again. Vague as it is, Robbie guesses the word is meant more for herself than him, reassurance that this is the right thing to be doing. "So I don't know what I expected next, if I thought Mason was just going to keep footing the bill for my tuition or my apartment or whatever…" Tori trails off, scowling at nothing in particular, maybe the memory of her naivety. "I ended up bartending at this place, a hole in the wall about three blocks from my apartment. That's where I met Laurie."

"She was your?" Robbie's not really sure how to finish the sentence. A myriad of adjectives flocking to his tongue, buy none of them seem quite right. Peering first at his spasming mouth, and then to the hand that's gesticulating between them, Tori's expression briefly shifts from grim to vaguely amused.

"We weren't _that_ close." She says, shoulders rising and falling with a gentle shrug. "Laurie was, she was a dancer." Tori hooks air quotes into the air alongside this word. "We used to work Thursday nights together. She was nice you know, the first friendly face I'd seen in a long time. When I couldn't keep up the rent at the apartment Mason put in me, she let me crash on her couch. A few days later, she had this huge fight with her boyfriend and he moved out. I sort of upgraded myself up to full roommate status, just because – she had bills, I had nowhere to go." Again, Tori yanks her shoulders up and down. The movement is jerky this time, less refined.

"Nowhere to go but up?" Robbie asks, trying to sound hopeful. He just sounds apprehensive, no less tentative than a storm chaser walking headlong into their first hurricane. He's seen the wreckage from a mile away, anxious to examine it. Now that the details are coming into focus though, he's starting to wonder if it was such a good idea.

"Not so much." Tori's words are soft, flung from her lips as if she'd rather say anything else. She doesn't speak for a while, but when she does, her voice is stronger. "Things were like – when my Platinum Artist Education Grant got pulled, that was the worst. It happened, I think two weeks before the start of the semester. I don't qualify financial aid, so I thought I'd have to drop out." With that statement out in the open, Tori takes a slow, jittery inhale. "That's when Laurie – I don't know if she saved me, exactly – but that's when she managed to keep me in school." From the way Tori sighs, and the way she drops her head into her lap, Robbie is beginning to get an idea of how Tori had cobbled together an entire semester's tuition money in two weeks. He swallows; it feels like shards of glass in his throat.

"Laurie got me a job dancing – fucking stripping like a sad cliché - to pay for the next semester."

Tori's eyes flick back to him, glassed over and anguished. Her lips are pressed tightly together, trembling slightly. He knows how hard it was to say that. Robbie's also aware that he'll never see the Tori that he should have graduated high school with again; the past few years have taken too much from her. Hunching forward, he tentatively wraps an arm around Tori, searching, searching for a way to hold what's left together.

"Yeah, but you're studying back in California now, right? You're here with me and things are going to be better." Again, Robbie aims for hopeful, determination edging into his voice as well. Maybe he's a little more successful this time, Tori straightens, eyes clearing.

"Why do you believe in me so much?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Robbie counters, half of his mouth edging toward a bedraggled smile. Something crosses Tori's lips in response. It's curved like a smile, but so hollow that Robbie couldn't name it as such.

"The whispers around campus aren't exactly subtle." Her hands bunch up in her lap and her eyebrows screw together. Where sadness had been, bitterness flares into anger. Tori's eyes, often mistrustful, sometimes bottomless, have sharpened. They're dangerous, wild like a cornered lioness or something equally as capable of ripping a man limb from limb. Robbie thinks the look had been honed in New York.

"Tori, wh -"

"Which ones are true?" She hisses, eyes narrowing, limbs tensing. It's well hidden, but Robbie can tell she's apprehensive. The agitated question rests on shaky foundations. "They aren't all true, but –"

This time it's Robbie's voice cutting through hers. "Tori, I don't care what the Greeks say, I don't care what bar flies in New York might tell me." He says, fingers straying to Tori's hands, gently encircling her wrists like they might shatter. "I used to get so wrapped up in what the rest of the world was saying. Believe me, I know – _I know_ how it feels to hear people say you're nothing and you're no good. I just – the past will always find you, it's forever. Just don't let it destroy the present." Jade would say that he sounds like a fucking after school special or a Disney movie. Robbie tells himself he doesn't care. Didn't those movies and show all have happy endings, anyway? That wouldn't be so bad.

"And if that past is written down?" Tori asks, quietly this time, voice just barely rising above the music seeping underneath the door. Robbie sucks in a breath, aware now that of all the wounds crossing Tori's heart, the ones about her and the notes apparently spilled across every dorm on the campus are the freshest. Remaining silent for a moment, Robbie slips his hands from Tori's wrists and laces his fingers through hers.

"Then it's no more or no less true than if it wasn't. Tori, everything is documented in some for of another if it's happened. I still – that note you gave me is still in my drawers. I'm not," Robbie pauses, takes a deep breath. If he's going to spell out the truth, it may as well be cracked and bleeding. Raw, just as Tori's presented it to him. "Tori, that note is what made me realize I couldn't give up on you. Not every word that you leave behind is an anchor."

Robbie wants to say more, he wants to articulate his point better, but Tori takes a shaky breath, derailing his thoughts. From the way it rattles around in her chest, she may be beginning to cry. His arm twitches, eager to wind around Tori and hold her together. Tori's clutching to his hands though, locking them in place. She's holding on so hard that her nails are cutting into his palms. Maybe she's aware of him tensing with the pain, maybe it's something else. Tori looks down at their joined hands, swallowing sadly, glassy eyes apologetic as she loosens her grip.

"Robbie," She says, throat clogged with emotion. "You're_ so_ cheesy."

It's a little bit like a let off, the pressure valve being released. Robbie's sure he should be disappointed that Tori is apparently finished with discussing her past and his intentions. There are still so many blind spots and missing facts, he should be intent on exploring them. He can't quite manage the willpower though, not when Tori's gently extricating her hands from his, cupping his cheeks in them. She lurches forward and the resulting kiss is wet and salty. When Tori kisses him again and again, viciously affectionate, Robbie feels like his heart is going to explode. Eventually, Tori relents and pulls away. Predictably enough, the makeup is smeared, running down her perfect cheekbones.

Robbie's heart takes up residence in his throat as he regards Tori. She's delicately wiping the stains from her face, lips curled upwards. There's an element of tiredness to her posture and her eyes are slightly weary. With her lips creased that way, she doesn't look as downtrodden as she did when they sat down though. Gently, for he is a nerd, Robbie tucks a wisp of hair behind Tori's ear as she daps at her face with a napkin. She twitches a slight more certain smile at the contact. Eyes wandering to the napkin Tori's produced from her bag, Robbie wonders if she's been expecting to cry. He asks her this, chewing nervously at the inside of his lip.

"I was expecting to go home alone. Though all of this might be too much." Tori replies, eyes closing, arms gesturing vaguely. When they open again, she's struggling desperately to look impassive. It just come across as heartbreaking.

"Want to – we could hang out in my dorm? Like – not like because I want _that_ or anything, I just – there's popcorn and Aiden took Jade to a party?" Robbie fumbles his words, not quite used to inviting girls to do things with him, let along asking girls with tragic pasts and pretty faces to come back to his room. Tori's expression smooths out at his jumbled offer though, a smile seemingly fitting more naturally onto her lips this time.

"Yeah, yeah we could do that." Is all that she says, looking happy.

"So we can – we can leave here?" Robbie asks hopefully. Tori's shoulders shake with a laugh. Fondly, she runs a finger across his cheek. She's seen hell and she's seen sin, but Robbie is sure there is still a little of the girl he'd seen trotting through the halls of Hollywood Arts left in Tori.

"So eager to leave a strip club." Tori muses, eyes heavily lidded. "I knew you were special." Robbie smiles weakly, not quite sure how to take Tori's comment. He doesn't think it's malignant, but he's not entirely sure. He wonders if as something that's worked in the industry, Tori's taken his eagerness to leave as a slight. She's clearly brought him here for a reason, maybe to paint her confession with the starkness of reality.

"I'm – uh, not that there is anything wrong with this place. The decor is – it's fantastic really – I just, I would like to have some alone time with the most beautiful girl that's ever spoken to me." Apparently he's said the right thing. Tori's cheeks ripen, a slight blush darkening her bronzed skin. Biting back a smile, she regards Robbie through her eyelashes.

"I've only been working behind the bar here for the past month."

Tori phrases it like it's nothing, which on the surface, Robbie supposes it is. With all that's passed between them in this room, the implication isn't lost on Robbie. He's counted the days, so he knows his assumption is at least somewhat correct. It's been just about a month since Tori had left a note on his bedside drawer. It's been about a month since he began his pursuit of Tori Vega, maybe it's been about a month since maybe heart kicked back into gear, too. She's still got her secrets, he still has some of his own. As they leave TigerBox, things aren't so murky anymore.

He's increasingly hopefully that it's all going to work out.

* * *

**Okay, goddamn. That was a really hard chapter to write. It's not the full story, but it's a little about why Tori's so screwed up in his universe. Some of the things she's skipped over will be covered in future chapters, like how Tori found her way back to California, but others will be left up to you guys to fill in the blanks. That is, unless you have specific things you'd like answered **

**As always, I do enjoy the reviews. Leave me some because losing a bunch of chapters was pretty soul crushing haha.**


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